Do you mind bagging your own groceries in order to save money? Stores like Aldi require you to bag your stuff, and they also have their own shopping cart return system, so they don't have to pay extra people to collect carts. They say that these things help them keep food costs down. I thought about this after the self-checkout thread. I guess I'm okay with it in this case, because Aldi never had baggers or cart collectors to begin with. What do you think?
I actually PREFER bagging my own groceries. Not only does it help keep costs down, but I can organize food the way I want it as I bag them. No squished bread. No wasting 15 bags on a total of 25 items. No extra chit chat with the bagger while I wait patiently for them to bag. No cleaning products mixed with fresh produce. Win-win.
I like bagging my own food because I can distribute the weight of the bags so that they are not too heavy for me to carry into the house. Also, I can put the items I need to take into the house right away in one bag and the other items I can take into the house as I have time if I need to make a quick run before completing my shopping or letting someone else take the items out of the car at a later time.
I'm used to bagging my own groceries and don't mind as in the UK you don't get a choice sometimes and don't even get a bag. Even if I do have help bagging, I rebag things afterwards. I'm not sure it saves money as the staff need the work and I assume most are on minimum wage, take that away and there is less work for people. Already with self checkout, it has reduced the number of cashiers and stores are not over staffed, but understaffed as it is. Many only help to bag at peak times to help withe the flow and have other tasks, so it's not really saving money by getting rid of the job.
I've never had anyone bag my groceries for me, perhaps this is just an American thing. When seeing the thread I thought this referred to the costs of the bags themselves. I suppose I had never though about the extra cost involved in collecting trolleys though, which is where Aldi differs from other in requiring the shopper to return their own cart.
I prefer to bag my groceries myself. That might be because I used to work in a grocery store and am used to it, or just because I find I'm not as annoyed. I hate going to Walmart or somewhere and I get a bag for every one or two items. I've had cashiers put frozen items in with bread, cans set on top of eggs, and all kinds of other things that shouldn't have been done. I actually prefer the plastic or cloth bags that you can buy. They hold so much more and I don't end up making several trips into the house. I can pack them as heavy as I need and they are sturdy enough to take it. I will say that if more people bagged their groceries, the costs might go down. We would get several shipments of bags sometimes a week. They would come in with the rest of the stock, and it's a waste of money. Most people don't recycle their bags, and it costs the store money when they have to order more than they need/needed. I like to get the brown paper bags when I forget my cloth ones. I'll leave the paper bags in my car and reuse them until they fall apart.
I like bagging my groceries so that I can organize them how I like. Or I prefer dedicated baggers. My experience is cashiers do the worse job at bagging, probably because they weren't as trained as baggers or because they are doing more than one thing at a time and want to do it as soon as possible. But I don't believe that cutting staff makes the food prices go down, it just makes the profit for the company go up. My partner used to work as a bagger and the store he worked on has about the same prices as any grocery store that don't have baggers. Prices are more determined by the market with all stores being almost equal in this area. So in that sense I prefer stores have baggers because there are a lot of unemployed people that need jobs and baggers make it so that cashiers work faster.
I prefer bagging my own groceries, honestly. I hate the way a lot of the employees will bag them- things end up squished, mixed up in unpleasant ways, tossed and stuffed together way past what the capacity of the bag should be. Plus it just takes extra time to wait for someone else to bag them, when I could be bagging them while the cashier is ringing them up. I hadn't really thought about it in terms of keeping costs down though, so much as just personal preference.
I don't mind bagging my own groceries, but for christs sake have some damn bags there available. There is no way those bags provide any significant cost savings by not offering them. I get that we should all be more environmentally friendly, but there are still times when we need to make unexpected trips to the store and don't have our cloth bags with us, or buy more than we can fit in them. I don't mind bagging my own groceries, but it does seem like a bit of a waste of time for the grocer to go through the trouble of loading all the items *back* into my cart rather than simply putting them in a bag. Also, with the cloth bags, they are not always ideal. Sometimes I am buying raw chicken, I don't want juices from it leaking all over my other foods, I want it in it's own separate plastic bag. Same thing goes with bottles of milk, those lids leak easily when you squeeze the bottle, then milk gets all over my other groceries. Also stuff like liquid soap or detergents leak too. Why don't they just make some sort of automated device that holds a bag open for the cashier so they can place items into it after they rung them up?
Where I live it's pretty standard to bag your own grocery and shopping items. The cashier will help, but it's usually on you. I myself like bagging my own stuff because I pair things together according to what they are. For example, cleaning products go together, cold things meant to go on a fridge go together, cans go together. I also reinforce the bag with two bags put together in case what's inside is too heavy (soda, for example). The baggers never do such a good job on that, so I prefer it like that!
I prefer bagging my own stuff as well, for many of the reasons stated. I also really hate for my bread to absorb the fragrance of my soap when they are stuffed into the same bag. As noted, I too hate bringing home tons of bags for a few items. I don't need a separate bag for every single thing. I also like using my insulated shopping bags, since they are re-useable which avoids waste, and because they help keep things colder longer.
Self-service baggage is fine, I've done it all my life - good exercise too. Serviced bagging, is merely a position created by a business owner to promote care for their bosses, the consumer, so he/she will feel privilege and feel good for shopping at that particular business and possibly recommend the shopping there to other consumers. Truly, bagging, it's all dependent on the image a business wants to present to its consumers and employees, which may or may not increase sales, and probably eventual profits.
I love Aldi's. They are, by far, my favorite store to shop at for value and saving money! I love the cart thing... it saves my car from getting damaged in the parking lot and also helps to keep food costs low. I don't mind bagging my own groceries at all... the only issue I do have is I always feel rushed at the checkout! They are so fast half the time I don't even have a chance to get my money out. I just don't like to feel pressured and I am usually nervous when I leave the store for that reason. Love saving money though!! Danyel
We don't have any grocery stores here that will let you bag your own groceries. Personally, I would love that. I would definitely prefer to bag my own groceries and have them organized exactly like I want them instead of thrown in the bag any which way. I keep hearing so much about Aldi's that I wish we had one here.
I don't mind bagging my own, but the only way I will do it is if I am going thru a self check out. As someone else commented, to do it as someone else is checking you out is very rushed. I'm not a fan of Aldi's and I really hate the stores that expect you to bring your own bags (Price Right). They say it keeps costs down, well that may be the case but their stock is mostly made up of off brand products and they don't have a lot of variety as far as things most people go to the store to buy.
I don't mind, but it can be a hassle trying to pay, then get your things bagged up and be out of the way of the next person. When they are busy this is very hard to do I find, so I don't care for that so much. But on the other hand, since they have a few less employees, they are able to have lower prices, which is a good thing and I do think that makes it worth it.
We don't have an Aldi's in my area. Several of the area grocery stores offer self-checkouts. I often use these aisles. Since I'm already bagging my groceries for free about half of the time, I wouldn't mind doing it for savings. We used to have Rack n Sacks around here, but they all went away. I think it was because of the quality of the items and produce they offered, not because of the required self-bagging.
I prefer someone to bag my groceries. If I have a lot of stuff, I don't feel like being the one to bag it up. Also, there never seem to be enough bags to bag my groceries. I always seem to pick the one line that always runs out of bags. I also feel like I have to rush through bagging my groceries because other people are behind me and have to bag their stuff up too.
Truthfully, no I don't, but I really don't have a choice anymore. The only benefit that comes out of it is packing the bags to what I know I can carry versus what someone else is estimating for me.
I'd be for this, because i don't mind bagging my own groceries if it means I get to save some money. Also, it can be advantageous to have control of how you bag your items since even though employee naggers usually do a good job of it, you could always find something minor to fix that would fit your preferences better. The only problem is that I'm a bit lazy sometimes so in those cases I'd probably just opt to go to a different store.
