Aldi Employees Are Begging You To Not Try This TikTok Checkout Hack

Aldi is a popular grocery store for many price-conscious shoppers because it's a great place to get quality goods at low prices. The chain is able to keep their prices so low because they are a fairly no-frills store, focusing on providing the lowest prices possible by keeping all the bells and whistles to a minimum. One of the ways they do this is by having customers bag their own items at the end of the conveyor belt, which frees up their cashiers to move the line along as quickly as possible.

However, not everyone likes bagging their own groceries at this pace, which led to a recent Aldi "hack" that has since gone viral that claimed to provide a way for shoppers to do so more leisurely. Per the Daily Mail, a shopper in Australia made a Facebook post claiming to have found the trick to getting notoriously fast Aldi cashiers to slow down. She posted a photo of all her grocery items individually spread out 30 centimeters apart on the conveyor belt, with the caption "Just so we got time to pack."

The idea behind the "hack" is that if customers space out their items far enough away from each other along the conveyor belt, then Aldi cashiers will be forced to ring them up slower, giving customers more time to bag rather than trying to keep up with the cashiers breakneck speed. People had mixed feelings about the trick, with some commenting that it was "genius." One reply read, "Great idea. Might try it next time I don't feel like taking on the Aldi ninja fast cashiers lol." 

However, other shoppers responded saying it was "selfish" and "annoying," with one person declaring, "People like you packing their bag at the register [are] so annoying and selfish. Try packing at the bench like everyone else." 

When it comes to the opinion of Aldi's employees, the consensus on this hack is pretty clear. Store cashiers are not fans of customers spreading the items out and slowing down their ring speed, and many will simply hold all the items up at the front of the conveyor belt until every item is by the register, so that they can then ring everything up all at once anyway, making the hack essentially useless.

Aldi employee and Tiktok creator @julia.rowland recently took to social media to explain why this "hack" is actually a bad idea, and to ask customers to please refrain from deliberately slowing down the line. "Coming from someone who works at Aldi, please don't do this," she posted, adding, "I get it. Y'all trying to find a loophole. You don't want to bag your own groceries, but that's what Aldi is all about." 

While being forced to bag your own groceries may seem like more work from the customer's perspective, it makes a lot of sense from a business standpoint. "The way we do things at Aldi, we do for a reason. We have very short staff so that we don't have to pay as many people, so that your products are cheaper. But if we bagged for you guys, we'd have to hire more people to bag for you, which would make the price of your products go up," @julia.rowland further explained in her video, which has since racked up over 400,000 likes on TikTok.

The hack is not only inconvenient and ineffective, it could also lead to negative repercussions for the Aldi cashiers that are scored daily on their speed and efficiency when ringing up items at the checkout. Deliberately slowing them down could hurt their scores, making them seem like less efficient workers, even if the delay is caused through no fault of their own. "Our store is all about efficiency. We need to get the customer cashed out and out of the store as fast as possible, so we have less people having to be up at the register scanning items," @julia.rowland explained in her TikTok video, pleading with shoppers to "please don't" try this hack.

Anyone that has ever shopped at Aldi should know that employees do not bag customers' groceries, so rather than trying to "hack" the store, it is a better idea to simply come prepared, or just shop at a different place. Aldi could one day choose to employ baggers, like many other grocery stores do, but there is a good chance that the extra costs would eventually get passed on to customers in the form of higher prices. 

So when you come to Aldi to take advantage of their great deals, that also means you should also be prepared to bag your own items — so don't forget your reusable grocery bags!