Aldi Nord had expanded its app-based customer loyalty programme to all its stores in Belgium in July. The discounter is relying on the solution GK Engage from its POS software provider GK Software. This week, Lebensmittel Zeitung reported on its experiences with the solution on site – the first foray into the world of the Aldis, where customers are enticed out of anonymity with discount points.
One highlight of the GK Engage application are the Swop promotions, in which the retailer makes an offer to customers when they exchange a selected item for another as The Retail Optimiser reported. Aldi Nord is cleverly using this functionality in Belgium to draw its customers’ attention to the immense price advantage of its own-brand products compared to the manufacturer brands also listed.
Swop promotions are known primarily in North America as a radical form of retail media. There, brand-name manufacturers pay retailers to offer customers who have added one of their competitors’ items to their shopping basket, either via mobile self-scanning in the store or in the online shop, a significant discount if they exchange the item for one from the advertising brand manufacturer.
Swop promotions calling for self-scanning
With regard to Aldi Nord, this raises the question: will self-scanning with the Aldi Nord app become a reality after all? So far, only those customers who create their shopping lists with the Aldi Nord app can see the offer to exchange manufacturer branded items for private label products. However, solutions such as GK Engage become really exciting when they interact with customers during their shopping based on real-time data.
And indeed, Aldi Nord tested self-scanning in 2023 with Shopreme as the supplier of the software and complementary self-checkout terminals in the Netherlands. The Retail Optimiser reported on this. However, the project was abandoned again in 2024.
Lidl steps up app-based self-scanning
Competitor Lidl – also a GK customer – is currently rolling out smartphone-based self-scanning at a rapid pace in numerous countries. However, this is only in stores that already have self-checkouts, where customers are then supposed to pay for the goods they have scanned with their mobile phones, as reported today by The Retail Optimiser.
According to information from Aldi Nord IT team members who spoke with The Retail Optimiser, there are no plans for a new attempt at app-based self-scanning at Aldi Nord in the foreseeable future. For one thing, the company is grappling with much bigger problems. The company has still not made any progress with its new SAP-based merchandise management system, which led to disaster when it went live at the Dutch regional company Culemborg in April 2024 – as reported by The Retail Optimiser.
Poor usage rates for smartphone scanning in Germany
On the other hand, all retail companies are facing the problem that the usage rates of self-scanning with customers’ smartphones are extremely low in the discounter’s home country, Germany. In 2022, EHI Retail Institute published a study according to which, at that time, only 0.67 per cent of purchases in retail outlets in Germany that offer self-scanning with customers’ smartphones were actually recorded in this way.
The fact that dm Drogeriemarkt will not be pursuing mobile phone-based self-scanning any further indicates that the usage rate in German retail has not increased significantly.
