Aldi to start excepting credit cards

monkeysnapper

As of 18th November aldi is to start accepting credit cards . Lidl started this a month or so ago . I suppose this will increase their market share as they are a budget supermarket .

Sorry for spelling in title

vicwatson

Aldi to start excepting credit cards

As of 18th November aldi is to start excepting credit cards . Lidl started this a month or so ago . I suppose this will increase their market share as they are a budget supermarket

Accepting (sorry nazi grammer alert):)

Amirani

It's about time. I know a lot of German retailers aren't very credit card friendly, but I find them so much more convenient.

allthedoyles

monkeysnapper wrote: »

As of 18th November aldi is to start accepting credit cards . Lidl started this a month or so ago . I suppose this will increase their market share as they are a budget supermarket .

Sorry for spelling in title

That is good to hear , and yet at the same time , our local Centra is now asking for minimum €10 spend on card purchases .

Atlantic Dawn

allthedoyles wrote: »

That is good to hear , and yet at the same time , our local Centra is now asking for minimum €10 spend on card purchases .

Apparently this is against the rules that they accepted when signing up to get the credit card terminal.

brian_t

vicwatson wrote: »

Accepting (sorry nazi grammer alert):)

This is a thread about Aldi. Don't mention the war!

snubbleste

Lidl have been doing this since March. I started a thread about it ie. retailers accepting a new form of payment from consumers and it was locked.

coylemj

Will this speed up or slow down the queues at the checkout? Not sure if the CC companies are faster than the Irish banks at approving transactions.

With most of the banks now charging fees on a per transaction basis (instead of a flat charge per quarter if you stay below a defined threshold), I find it strange that so many people use debit (formerly Laser) cards at the checkouts in the German discount stores.

TheBoffin

Will this speed up or slow down the queues at the checkout? Not sure if the CC companies are faster than the Irish banks at approving transactions.

It should not have any impact on speed apart from those customers that have all their shopping scanned and then realise credit card is not accepted.

Big stores usually run a local gateway (instead of a re-direct gateway which is most common for online payments) which means that the only information being passed in real time is an pre-authorisation check for the amount due (i.e. making sure you have enough on your card for the transaction). The amount is then held in sanction by your bank or card provider.. The actual payment is processed in batches overnight.

In short it wont make any difference to transaction times.

Truckermal

Slightly off topic but thank christ for Aldi, it makes shopping so easy and stress free with no fooling about like Super Valu not to mention the price difference.

Geuze

coylemj wrote: »

With most of the banks now charging fees on a per transaction basis (instead of a flat charge per quarter if you stay below a defined threshold), I find it strange that so many people use debit (formerly Laser) cards at the checkouts in the German discount stores.

Fair point.

In order to encourage less cash and more card use, we need to encourage or force banks to offer bank accounts with flat fees, e.g. 50 pa.

The Glass Key

Geuze wrote: »

Fair point.

In order to encourage less cash and more card use, we need to encourage or force banks to offer bank accounts with flat fees, e.g. 50 pa.

Whats wrong with cash? Its far too easy to "sign" (put in a pin number) for money you don't have but cash if you haven't got it you can't spend it.

Fred Swanson

This post has been deleted.

The Glass Key

Fred Swanson wrote: »

This post has been deleted.

And they seem to go down more often than they do in other shops. tbh I'm quite happy with cash in Lidl and Aldi and can understand the way they do business by cutting out as much unnecessary expense as possible. If they are now accepting credit cards then the costs will have gone up somewhere to pay for it.

brian_t

In Australia Aldi accept credit cards but have a 0.5% surcharge on all credit card purchases to cover the cost of the service.

https://www.aldi.com.au/en/shopping-at-aldi/customer-information/faqs/payments/

Nonoperational

coylemj wrote: »

Will this speed up or slow down the queues at the checkout? Not sure if the CC companies are faster than the Irish banks at approving transactions.

With most of the banks now charging fees on a per transaction basis (instead of a flat charge per quarter if you stay below a defined threshold), I find it strange that so many people use debit (formerly Laser) cards at the checkouts in the German discount stores.

It has nothing to do with the banks approving transactions. Visa debit etc goes through instantly at broadband connected terminals. We changed at work recently and it's great.

Fred Swanson

This post has been deleted.

TheBoffin

Lidl must have the slowest terminals in history. You could have dealt with 3 peoples shopping in the time it takes to process one card payment.

I don't claim to know anything about Lidl's setup but in my experience it appears to dial on demand which would make it slow if that is the case.

I'd say that many places will stick with dialup for CC processing for the foreseeable future. The rules for PCI DSS compliance are much more strict for broadband connections.

TheBoffin

The rules for PCI DSS compliance are much more strict for broadband connections.

Correct, also same applies to local payment gate and temporary card data retention

rubadub

monkeysnapper wrote: »

I suppose this will increase their market share as they are a budget supermarket

You might expect an increase in prices to cover the CC charges too.

Fred Swanson wrote: »

This post has been deleted.

Its astonishing how slow they are, esp. when lidl appear to highly value the speed of the checkout people. I heard they are required to do so many transactions per hour/minute or something, like they are monitored about it. There is a girl in my local one who I always go to, even if her queue is twice as long I go there as she is over twice as fast, its like watching robot doing it she's so fast, and then waiting ages for the CC. Even if the faster ones cost a lot more I expect they would have financially benefited from it.

allthedoyles

Was in the local Aldi tonight and see they still have the signs on the walls which read '' we accept laser only ''

So on the way to the queue I noticed that the checkout lady was asking '' cash or laser ? '' to every customer.

When my turn came around I answered '' Visa Debit Card '' and the response was '' oh - well we'll give it a try and see ''

The Glass Key

allthedoyles wrote: »

Was in the local Aldi tonight and see they still have the signs on the walls which read '' we accept laser only ''

So on the way to the queue I noticed that the checkout lady was asking '' cash or laser ? '' to every customer.

When my turn came around I answered '' Visa Debit Card '' and the response was '' oh - well we'll give it a try and see ''

AND !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Fred Swanson

This post has been deleted.

allthedoyles

The Glass Key wrote: »

AND !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

AND - yes Aldi now accept cash-laser-visa debit cards - credit cards

sandin

Atlantic Dawn wrote: »

Apparently this is against the rules that they accepted when signing up to get the credit card terminal.

No it is not.

Going Forward

coylemj wrote: »

Will this speed up or slow down the queues at the checkout?

God, not any faster, I'll need oxygen.

198321

Their latest leaflet says (at the end, small letters) Cash of debit cards only. No credit cards!

Wasn't going to buy anything there so no big deal, but from time to time I go in and if I like something I just realize I've no cash so can't even buy it and go away

monkeysnapper

198321 wrote: »

Their latest leaflet says (at the end, small letters) Cash of debit cards only. No credit cards!

Wasn't going to buy anything there so no big deal, but from time to time I go in and if I like something I just realize I've no cash so can't even buy it and go away

well ive used my credit card in there this week so i can confirm it works .

BuffyBot

So on the way to the queue I noticed that the checkout lady was asking '' cash or laser ? '' to every customer.

I hear that everytime I'm there. People will still be saying "Laser" when they mean debit card for years to come..

Fred Swanson

This post has been deleted.