Aldi Australia has finally rolled out shopping baskets in selected supermarket stores – but some customers warned they might not stay around for long.
One shopper shared a picture on social media showing a pile of baskets stacked in the fresh fruits and vegetables aisle of the Underwood outlet in Logan, just south of Brisbane, Queensland.
‘Love it,’ the shopper wrote, alongside the photograph, in a Facebook group.
The baskets, which are currently being trialled in some stores across the country, will help make shopping a breeze for customers buying less than 10 items.
‘We are trialling baskets in select stores to assess the benefit it could bring to our stores and customers,’ an Aldi spokeswoman told Daily Mail Australia.
Aldi Australia has finally rolled out shopping baskets in selected supermarket stores. One shopper shared a picture on social media showing a pile of baskets stacked in the fresh fruits and vegetables aisle of the Underwood outlet in Logan, just south of Brisbane, Queensland
Many were excited about the new feature, saying they will no longer have to worry about dropping items on the ground while holding them or push a giant trolley around the store when they only need a handful of products.
‘At last, how can a supermarket operate without providing baskets? Makes it so much easier,’ one wrote, while another said: ‘About time… I only go in for a few things but sometimes I could use a basket.’
However, many shoppers pointed out: ‘Don’t get your hopes up people’ because they will ‘all be stolen by customers within a few weeks’.
‘We used to have them at our local Aldi and then they stopped. I asked why and they said it was costing them nearly $1,000 a month in stolen baskets. So fingers crossed they stay,’ one customer claimed.
Another said: ‘We got them for a few weeks then they took them away,’ while another added: ‘They always get stolen, it’s so hard to keep them in stores.’
But some shoppers said it was impossible to steal them because employees working at checkout ensure they don’t leave the store.
‘It was taken from me at the checkout so you can’t take them to your car,’ one said.
On Wednesday, Aldi opened its first ‘Corner Store’ in North Sydney, a new small-format store layout, offering a range of ready-to-go meals, an artisan bakery and self-serve checkouts (pictured)
At present most stores offer a coin deposit trolley system where customers are required to insert a $1 or $2 coin into a trolley to unlock it from a pack.
At the end of their shop, they can retrieve their money once they return the trolley to a bay, a system that helps prevent dumped or stolen trolleys.
Last year, customers criticised Aldi for selling $10 shopping baskets as part of its Special Buys range, arguing they should supply them for free like every other grocer.
The German retailer launched the collapsible ‘Shopbox’ with handles, with the supermarket’s logo emblazoned on the side.
‘Selling? WTF seriously? They should be free like other supermarkets,’ one person wrote on Facebook in response to the sale.
While another said: ‘If you aren’t going to give baskets generally then supply smaller trolleys as an option – they are too big to navigate.’
Last year, customers criticised Aldi for selling $10 shopping baskets as part of its Special Buys range, arguing they should supply them for free like every other grocer (pictured)
The baskets come just weeks after Aldi finally launched its first ever self-serve checkouts at the Darlinghurst store in the inner-city suburb of Sydney in a surprising backflip just years after the supermarket chain insisted it will never introduce them.
The card-only self-serve checkouts, which are part of a trial, are expected to roll out to 10 stores across New South Wales, with six to eight machines installed at each to provide customers with quicker ways to shop.
The expectation is that pending the results of the trial, the self-checkouts will be rolled out more widely.
On Wednesday, Aldi opened its first ‘Corner Store’ in North Sydney, a new small-format store layout, offering a range of ready-to-go meals, an artisan bakery and self-serve checkouts.