Shoppers have slammed ALDI over its lack of per-customer policy after the sales of a popular Special Buys item left stores across the country in disarray.
On Wednesday, the budget supermarket restocked its Lacura Caviar skincare line in stores nationwide. The $19.99 beauty kit – which includes a serum, intensive treatment and face cream – sold out in some stores in a matter of minutes.
Reports of chaos in stores began emerging on social media sites, with customers questioning why ALDI has not implemented a per-customer limit.
“My son got crushed today by the nutters who separated him and me to get their creams. Crazy!” one woman said.
“Scenes in two branches I visited of greedy pushy women stuffing as much as they could take and I have come out empty handed… my scowling at greedy people didn’t work! And I’m not going to push and shove just to be a selfish pain,” another wrote.
“I felt like I was in the middle of a cat fight, with women grabbing and pushing … It’s a matter of time before a brawl erupts,” one commented.
Tammy, the woman behind popular page Aldi Lovers Australia, said she is growing more concerned.
She told Yahoo Lifestyle, “The main theme I’ve seen with the Caviar creams this time is how aggressive people were with getting their hands on them and how dangerous it’s getting.”
She said many stores did not enforce limits as suggested in the catalogue, and some customers bought boxes of the Lacura Caviar creams “only to resell at inflated prices on eBay and other sites”.
New listings on online platforms such as eBay show that the products are being resold for up to $90, or more than four times the retail price.
ALDI told Yahoo Lifestyle that they would not be reviewing their policy. “We are not in the practice of restricting the volume of items sold to our customers and our focus will remain on correctly balancing customer demand with stock availability,” said a spokesperson.
However, the supermarket emphasised that individual stores could apply limits when deemed necessary.
“While it is not ALDI policy to limit purchases to one item per customer, our stores do reserve the right to limit purchases to one per customer when they anticipate unusually high demand,” a spokesperson said on ALDI’s Facebook page.
