At the checkout you pay with cash or card – that’s how it used to be. Because more and more retailers are using new methods to pay for purchases. The discounter Aldi Nord is currently testing a new payment system in the Netherlands that is intended to make shopping easier for customers. What does the project look like and what can customers expect?
More and more retailers are making sustainable changes to their payment and shopping systems. The classic cash register is to be increasingly replaced; In many branches, self-service checkouts are therefore already part of everyday life. Some retailers are now going a step further. For example, Kaufland recently introduced the “Bluecode” system and Aldi Nord also has plans. The discounter is currently testing a new system called “Shop&Go” in Aldi Nord branches in the Netherlands.
This is how “Scan&Go” works at Aldi
With “Scan&Go” the name says it all: Customers can scan and pay for their goods themselves – without any cash registers. You scan the goods with your smartphone and add them to the shopping cart. In order to be able to use the system, however, you need the corresponding app from Aldi. Payment is then also made via the app, for example via credit card or another payment service that you have previously stored in the application.
Alternatively, the data of the scanned goods can also be transferred to a terminal within the store and then paid on site. These terminals can also be used as normal self-service checkouts. The Austrian manufacturer supplies the necessary hardware for the pilot project Shopreme.
Is “Scan&Go” at Aldi also coming to Germany?
So far, the pilot project, which is still fresh, has only been running in the Netherlands, more precisely in Benkel-Erschot, near the Belgian border. In fact, the “Scan&Go” project is not Aldi’s first of this kind. Just last year, the discounter tested a system in Greenwich, UK, that no longer uses any tills. This system called “Shop&Go” works by having customers register and shop in the store using a QR code generated by an app. Instead of conventional checkouts and employees, cameras and weight sensors check the purchase. A comparable store also exists from Amazon in the USA.
It is not yet known to what extent the “Scan&Go” system will also be used in other countries such as Germany. However, Aldi speaks of a project “for the entire Aldi Nord group of companies”. Company spokesman Dennis Boczek made it clear, however, that the test first had to be extensively evaluated. Then a release in Germany is also conceivable.