Among the supermarket chains operating in Australia today, Aldi is probably the most well known for offering customers cheap and quality options.

But aside from their amazing markdown deals, there is another thing that differentiates Aldi from the other grocery chains, and that is their trolleys.

Unlike Woolies or Coles, Aldi requires their shoppers to commit to a small, refundable gold coin deposit to use their shopping trolleys.

Ever since the supermarket giant came to Australia in 2001, they have always used coin-operated trolleys in hopes to encourage their customers to return the trolleys to the store – a key preventative measure against trolleys being dumped in backstreets, waterways and public areas.

“As a result, we find almost all of our trolleys are returned to our stores,” said an Aldi spokesperson. “By incentivising customers to return their own trolleys, we save money on trolley retrieval services and pass those savings on to customers in the form of our low prices.”

The mechanics behind the idea is pretty simple: pay a small fee for a token to use the trolley, and to get your money back, just clip the cart into another Aldi trolley or chain.

However, this is not the case for everyone every time, such as this one shopper who said that Aldi’s trolley return system was more inconvenient than helpful.

One Aldi shopper discovered there were no trolleys in the bays for him to redeem his coin back. Credit: news.com.au.
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One Aldi shopper has taken to Facebook to complain about an “annoying” problem with the store’s trolleys.

The man said that after he was done shopping at Aldi’s Lake Haven store in NSW, he went to the carpark downstairs to unpack his groceries into his car.

Once he had finished loading his groceries, it was time to return the trolley to the trolley bay and retrieve his gold coin. Simple enough, right?

However, there were no available release chains or trolleys in the bay. Meaning, he would have to take the trolley all the way upstairs to get his deposit back.

“Just a pain because this particular Aldi is in a shopping complex,” he added.

When he wrote an email to a store representative, he was only met with a generic response, saying “thank you” for his report.

The man’s post on social media was met with mixed reactions from fellow Aldi shoppers, but most of them said that they have been in a similar “annoying” situation.

One user said that most of the time, the chain is missing at the designated Aldi trolley bay. Other times, it is filled with trolleys from others stores like Coles and Woolies.

Meanwhile, some suggested that it would be easier to take the complaint to the store’s manager. One person even shared: “I’ve had two issues and the store has gladly reissued me with a token free of charge.”

 

[Ree]

All three supermarkets at Karingal hub (Woolies, Coles and Aldi) use tokens or gold coins. I have no problem returning the trolley to the trolley bay at the end of my shop. What I do find annoying is that both Coles and Woolies have a large and a small trolly. The small trolly will fit into the large trolly but not the other way around. Each trolly bay only allows for one bay for each store. Consequently, if a small trolly has been returned and attached to a large trolly there is nowhere else to put the trolly except in a bay from another store. Aldi has the largest trollies which I personally love, but they can only be attached to other Aldi trollies. I often find that I cannot return my trolly to its spot due to non Aldi trollies taking up the Aldi bay. This problem is caused by the 'one size fits all' policy at the trolly bays which starts at the planning and construction stage for the shopping complex. It would be better to allow for 5 or 6 bays. Two for Woolies and two for Coles, one for large trollies and the second for the small trollies. Aldi could have one bay or two. The problem that creates if the trolly bays are in the centre of a carpark is that parking spaces would be lost.
I think that if people slowed down and returned the trolly correctly, rather than being in so much of a hurry that they are unwilling to spend the extra couple of minutes to put the trolly in the correct bay, the problem might not be as bad.

If you read this correctly, it was NOT a complaint about Aldi trolleys or their return system. It was the fact that there are NEVER enough trolley bays as;
a) they are all taken up by other supermarket shoppers returning them where ever.
b) the large and small trolley sizes from Coles and Woolies that do not allow for all sizes to connect together
c) as I stated, the problem starts, at the planning stages when not enough space allowance is given for trolly returns. Only 3 spaces is not sufficient.

 

[68autobug]

I have seen & used the smaller trolleys at Woolworths but I didn't know there could be problems with the coin return etc between the sizes... ALDI is the only shop I have visited that used coins in the trolleys... The first time I went to the semi local Aldi store, I didn't have a coin for a trolley so I told a checkout person & they gave Me a coin from the cash drawer... and I did return it later.... I always carry a token in My wallet now. I can see the problems that other different sized trolleys with coin s not being retrieved.. Lee

 

[Nashy]

I don't actually use Aldi trolleys for this reason. In my shopping centre we have a Woolies and an Aldi. I always go get a Woolies trolley even if I'm not actually going to shop there this trip as I have to walk past Woolies to get to Aldi.

Do you actually return the trolley to its proper place or just leave it where finish with it?????

 

[Nashy]

People should be more responsible & less entitled!

My local IGA store has lockable wheel trolleys. If the trolley is out of a certain range from the store, one front wheel locks up and it is extremely hard to manoeuvre. There are none of these trolleys abandoned in the local streets. Not like Woolies and Aldi. It's not hard to return the trolleys to their correct locations.

 

[Ricci]

Do you actually return the trolley to its proper place or just leave it where finish with it?????

Always return it to Woolies trolley bays.

 

[RhodaStarr]

Walk a little further to Aldi. Pay $1.00 for a token for this Store and return the grocery trolley to the exact place for that store. BTW you get the token back for next time. Aldi's trolleys are very easy to push.

 

[joshram]

The thing that annoys me is the poor design of the tokens you cannot use the token attached to the clip it comes with in the trolley, then it is difficult to remove so I have attached my own wire coated bread tie to the token works much better, but they could have made them with a little stick out tab with the hole in to attach the clip for easy removal. Hope that makes sense as I am not clever enough to add a photo.
Having said that I am a dedicated ALDI shopper and will put up with the minor inconvenience.

I purchased a trolley token from ebay. It is longer and easier to use than one of those small tokens and is removed once the trolley is released. It fits Coles trolleys as well. (I don't know about Woolies as I don't shop there.) I still return the trolley to the trolley bay but if there are no other trolleys or chain there I can leave the trolley without losing a token or coin.

 

[Ricci]

Walk a little further to Aldi. Pay $1.00 for a token for this Store and return the grocery trolley to the exact place for that store. BTW you get the token back for next time. Aldi's trolleys are very easy to push.

I can't reach the bottom of the big trollies to get stuff out and with my bad back shouldn't try.

 

[Arevalo08]

I wish we had Aldi here in Townsville, to have the gold coin issue lol, apparently Townsville doesn’t have a large enough demographic to warrant a store! So sick and tired of Coles and Woolworths having the monopoly here.

 

[barbaranne]

"Unlike Woolies or Coles, Aldi requires their shoppers to commit to a small, refundable gold coin deposit to use their shopping trolleys". This statement is incorrect as both Woolies and Coles also use the gold coin to obtain - and return - trolleys for a refund. My local Woolies also has a release chain in the bay so that in the event that there are no trolleys there, shoppers can still click their trolley to the chain to receive their refund.

Perhaps some Coles and Woolies use the coin system, but where I live in Queensland, we have several Coles and Woolies stores within five kilometres to my home, and none of them use coins, while the Aldi stores do.

So it may depend where you live.

 

[Vinylted]

Perhaps some Coles and Woolies use the coin system, but where I live in Queensland, we have several Coles and Woolies stores within five kilometres to my home, and none of them use coins, while the Aldi stores do.

So it may depend where you live.

It also depends on how many nasty shoppers in the area that leave trolleys all over the district causing expense (and fines) for the supermarket. There is no cure for ignorance unfortunately.

 

[Thecla]

If you read this correctly, it was NOT a complaint about Aldi trolleys or their return system. It was the fact that there are NEVER enough trolley bays as;
a) they are all taken up by other supermarket shoppers returning them where ever.
b) the large and small trolley sizes from Coles and Woolies that do not allow for all sizes to connect together
c) as I stated, the problem starts, at the planning stages when not enough space allowance is given for trolly returns. Only 3 spaces is not sufficient.

When woolies at Mona Vale was refurbished they bought in the pay trolleys. At the start they gave everyone free tokens...great I had a couple. They also introduced the smaller trolley and did have special bays for those but herein lies the problem. Shoppers either didn't look to see what trolley went where or were just too plain lazy to take the trolley to where it should go. At my local shopping square there is woolies coles and aldi and trolleys everywhere. Aldi will have more bays closer to the exit where aldi is and is usually two lines directly behind that there is usually either a woolies or coles depending which supermarket is closest. In the aldi bays you can usually only get trolleys in one side because of that stupid arrow that points to one side only the other side is filled with everything else as well as the two bays butted up the other side of the aldi bays. I questioned a lady putting a woolies trolley in there willy nilly one day and she said this side is for other trolleys....see the arrow. I said no it isn't it's for aldi trolleys see the chain. She told me to FO left her trolley there and I had to find somewhere else for my trolley as the äldi"side was full.