This store's design makes you feel like you are trapped and assumed a shoplifter before proven…read moreinnocent, with the gate that closes right when you walk in. No other supermarket I have ever been to has this setup.
What really pushed my buttons though was that I did all my shopping, spending a full hour here because I wanted to explore and get to know the whole store, and when I got to the checkout, not a single register was open, only the self-checkout. But there was no one manning the self-checkout, there was literally not a single employee in sight.
I was frustrated, I don't like using the self-checkout when I have a large purchase with a full cart, but I felt forced into it. So I started scanning, and of course, it glitched on the first item, and had to wait for an employee to help. Eventually (it was not quick) an employee came out from the back of the store. He cleared the code...but then the second item I scanned glitched. There were 3 other customers also needing help. It was a tense, stressful atmosphere. I was waiting, and at this point it had been about 2 minutes total since I got to the front of the line, and at the pace things were proceeding, it was clear that I wasn't going to get out of this store in under 40 minutes, which is just crazily unacceptable to me.
So I told the employee, I want to check out at a regular register, or I will abandon the cart. He didn't say anything in response, so I abandoned the cart.
I feel bad for the employee.
I am very angry at the company though. If you don't hire enough staff to keep the store open, you need to close the store. It's rude and incredibly inconvenient to the customers AND to the employees.
I also just don't get it. Like...I've shopped at Lidl stores in Middletown, DE and in Lancaster, PA and have never had this experience there. They always have had registers open.
Companies need to stop trying to cut corners and push us customers around by making us deal with long inconveniences just to save them a few pennies. I don't put up with it, and I wish other customers wouldn't either. Companies need to be punished when they try to pull stunts like this.
I won't come back to this store until I receive an apology from management and reassurance that the store will always be adequately staffed in future visits.
Oh, and after leaving this awful store, what did I do? I went down the road to ALDI and I bought all of the same stuff...incidentally, lower prices, the produce was fresher. And a normal (not self-checkout) register was open with NO wait. It was a delightful experience.
I gave this place a chance and it failed miserably. I am just sad that I can't enjoy its good bakery section. That is the one good thing about this store. But they need to actually make a usable checkout process which means (1) adequate staff (2) always a normal register open (3) self-checkout that actually works.
Also maybe redesign the store so we don't feel trapped and like we are all being treated like shoplifters, because literally no other store I shop at does that. ALDI, Trader Joe's, Food Lion, ACME, they are all just normal. That ridiculous gate thing is only a thing of this store.
