Yet another difficulty with the dysfunction between the Instacart platform of the Aldi's app and…read morethe store. I ordered an item for pickup. I only ordered it because it was available for order; duh. When I went to pick it up at 945 for my 10 am pickup I noticed a substitute notification sent at 915. I had exactly a half hour to see it and reply, except I didn't see it in that timeframe.
But...then I saw another notification ONLY TEN MINUTES LATER that told me the window of substitution had closed. The item substituted was $3.00 more and besides I already had it at home. They gave me only ten minutes.
I tried to message the shopper to say I didn't want it, but it said the system could not send a message at that time. When they brought my order out, she said because the substitution window had closed, I couldn't get a refund. So I'm just screwed because they had something for sale...and the item, Wagyu ground beef for $4.99 a pound, is STILL showing available right now, but they don't have actually HAVE any available for sale. How incredibly annoying.
The store NEVER takes responsibility for the curbside orders, NEVER, not ONE TIME
It's always the customer's problem to have to sort out with the app, and you can imagine what a joyless task THAT is. You can't call the store and you can't call a customer service #.
The problem isn't the app.
Walmart has an app they built themselves that isn't based on Instacart and has multiple points of communication and redress. They make mistakes, too, but they take responsibility for them and don't just let the customer lump it. I get that; mistakes happen but how well one navigates them determines how serious a company is about the actual quality of their customer service. Walmart is serious, Aldi's is NOT. And Walmart charges me the same price in store or pick-up, Aldi's charges me a fee, Walmart doesn't for orders over $35, and Walmart doesn't charge me for bags, Aldi's does, and Aldi's charges up to 10% more for pickup items than in-store prices, and then gives me worse customer service despite charging me more for the privilege of being their customer, not in ONE way, but in THREE DIFFERENT WAYS!
And Schnucks uses the Instacart platform for its curbside pickup app, doesn't charge a fee for orders over $25, charges me the same price in or out, and can replace and refund items, and they use THE SAME DIGITAL PLATFORM. So the excuse that it's "the app's fault" is BS. I don't blame the employees, they're just playing the cards they were dealt, but the company policy was designed to fail customers and fail it does.
The employees are GREAT, polite and efficient.
But I'm only writing this review because this is the fourth time this is happened since the last negative review I wrote that was for the exact same issue, that they continue to ignore. So they don't seem to have any intention to fix it.
I'll still shop here but I'm going to get every possible item I can get from elsewhere. By keeping my orders few and far between I'll be risking fewer inconveniences.
And don't forget the needless extra expense! Groceries cost 30% more than they did five years ago when we all started using curbside pickup during the pandemic! They've had FIVE YEARS to refine their platform and have chosen NOT to, even though grocery profits are currently higher than they've been since 2007! They can't claim they aren't making enough money to be able to provide industry standard customer service!
Disappointed in Aldi's. Again.