Aldi shoppers have been warned to check their receipts carefully after it was revealed that discounts and promotions are not automatically applied at self-service checkouts, according to a report by The Mirror.

Customers must call over a staff member to manually input the savings, according to the news report.

"Any discounts don't automatically apply on the self-checkouts. You have to ask a human employee to take the discounts off manually," one shopper told the news outlet

Aldi confirmed discounts are applied at checkout by staff and encouraged customers to contact customer service if they feel wrongly charged.

The addition of self-service checkouts has divided Aldi fans, with some welcoming the convenience and others complaining about their difficulty, according to the news report.

Self-Checkout Glitches at Aldi: A Growing Concern

Shoppers at the discount supermarket chain have noticed that reductions or promotions are not automatically applied to their grocery bills when they are scanned at the self-service checkout. Instead, you have to call over a member of staff who will then manually input the savings for you. Shoppers have taken to social media to warn others as they believe many could end up missing out on the savings.

One Aldi shopper wrote in the Aldi fan group with over 270,000 members on Facebook: "Any discounts don't automatically apply on the self-checkouts. You have to ask a human employee to take the discounts off manually. This applies for % off stickers and any multibuys etc. I don't know if this is common knowledge."

Aldi customers flocked to the comments to confirm the claims with many telling the group that they had been caught out by this and paid more for their shop. One shopper noted: "Staff have to apply the discount at normal checkouts too." Another person said: "Yes it's because they don't change the barcode to reflect the reduced price. You just push the discount button and they come over to do it for you."

Self-Service Checkouts at Aldi: A Mixed Bag

A third added: "Staff have to apply the discount on a normal till so def will have to on a self-service till. I’ve had a few missed then realised!" One shopper said the issue was "disgusting" and that Aldi needed to have signs up telling customers they need a member of staff to help with discounts." One person said the issue was another reason why self service tills were "hopeless" adding: "They take longer than a proper till sometimes."

Aldi confirmed to the Mirror that discounts in its stores were applied at the checkout by Aldi staff and the feedback it receives about its self-service checkouts was "overwhelmingly positive". If shoppers feel as if they have been wrongly charged, Aldi says it encourages them to get in contact with its customer service team so the issue can be rectified.

Over the last few years, Aldi has added more self-service checkouts into their stores in a bid to "further improve customer experience". They were first launched back in 2019 and after the supermarket chain received "positive feedback" on them, more were going to b e rolled out across its UK stores.

The Future of Self-Service Checkouts at Aldi

The news of self-service checkouts divided Aldi fans with many welcoming the new additions to stores and others were not fans and complained that the self-service checkouts were too difficult for shoppers who aren't tech-savvy to use. One shopper told the Aldi Facebook group back in May: "Game changer for when you have a few things, use to put me off popping by before, having to wait in long normal till queue." Another commented: "Don't like them, so refuse to use them. Soon there will be no check-out tills if people are happy to use them self-checkouts."