Hello beautiful peoples!
I used to love going to Lidl every week in the past. We would get our shopping done, spend some of our hard earned money, come back home. Sorted. Past tense. Here’s why.
— The App Ambush
There is exactly one moment in my life when I open the Lidl app – at the checkout, to scan my Lidl Plus card. That’s it. I don’t use it to browse recipes. I don’t care about your weekly specials newsletter. I am not interested in your survey, your notification, your pop-up, or whatever other nonsense you’ve decided needs my attention at the precise moment I’m holding up a queue.
Every. Single. Time. I open that app at the register, Lidl decides it’s the perfect opportunity to shove some irrelevant garbage in my face. Just let me scan the bloody card and move on. Is that really so much to ask?
— The Self-Checkout Conspiracy
I’ve heard the theory – and honestly, at this point I believe it – that Lidl’s self-checkout machines are deliberately programmed to randomly reject correctly placed items, just to keep the customer service assistant busy and make sure someone is watching the customers. If that’s true, it’s one of the most patronising, customer-hostile design decisions I’ve ever encountered in retail.
Today (not for the first time) the machine scanned my item, I placed it in the bagging area exactly as instructed, and the machine flatly refused to continue. “Please place the item in the bagging area.” It was already in the bagging area, you useless piece of shit. The assistant was running between three different stations, extremely busy. I stood there for a moment, weighed my options, said “FUCK THAT,” walked over to the conveyor belt checkout, and joined the queue like it was 2003.
Neither Tesco nor SuperValu pulls this crap. Only Lidl. Somehow only Lidl.
— The Bottle Return Machine: A Comedy of Errors
Ireland’s deposit return scheme is a solid idea. The execution at Lidl is a disaster. I stood at that machine today trying to return Ballygowan sparkling water bottles – Irish bottles, with a perfectly valid barcode accepted without a single problem in SuperValu OR Tesco… – and the machine rejected them repeatedly. Too fast. Barcode not found. Try again. Try again. Try again.
After several attempts I picked up my bottles, walked to Tesco, fed them into their machine without a single hiccup, and was done in under two minutes. Lidl’s machine eventually accepted one bottle after ten attempts. One. I didn’t stick around for the rest.
— No Cashback – Seriously?
For those who don’t know – cashback is a service offered at the checkout where you can withdraw cash from your bank account while paying for your shopping. Instead of finding an ATM, you simply ask the cashier to add, say, €20 or €50 to your total, pay by card, and you get the cash back with your change. Simple, convenient, saves you a trip to the nearest ATM.
Tesco does it. SuperValu does it. Dunnes does it. Even your local Polish shop does it. It’s pretty much a standard feature of retail in Ireland at this point.
Lidl doesn’t offer cashback. At all.
It’s a small thing. But so is every other item on this list – and that’s exactly the point. It’s death by a thousand cuts. Every single friction point on its own is minor. Together they paint a picture of a supermarket that simply doesn’t care about making your life easier. You’re there to spend money and leave. Don’t ask for anything extra.
— The Bottom Line
A few years ago Lidl was my default supermarket. Weekly shop, no question. Now I go maybe once a month, reluctantly, and I’m increasingly wondering why I bother even that often.
SuperValu has online shopping. They deliver to my doorstep. If I am in the shop myself – their self-checkouts don’t treat customers like suspected shoplifters. Their bottle machines actually work. And as an introvert who genuinely values minimising unnecessary human interaction during a grocery run, the ability to do the whole thing from my couch and have it delivered by a friendly driver is genuinely life-improving.
Lidl, you’re not losing me over prices. Your prices are ok. You’re losing me over a dozen small, stupid, entirely avoidable friction points that somehow keep getting worse instead of better. Fix the app flow. Fix the self-checkout logic. Fix the bottle machines. Start offering cashback… Or don’t – and keep wondering why customers who used to spend €200 a week with you now barely spend €40 monthly.
I don’t know why the Lidl management insists on running things this way. But until something changes, you’re not getting my money. It’s really that simple. Vote with your wallet people.
Do you have your own gripes with Lidl? Let me know in the comments!
Catch you on the flip side,
AndrzejL
