August 2020 by Michelle M.
Their SmartShop app wasn't working correctly at all today. But there were no notices up to say so, even though staff knew there was an issue. Initially only I could log into their app, my mum couldn't. So we decided to put all the food on my account. Mum went to return her trolley and an alarm went off as she tried to leave the shop. Apparently this was because she had just come into the shop and, within 10 minutes, went to leave. A security guard came over and asked to look in her bags. She eventually got rid of the trolley, queued back up, found me, and said a staff member had managed to get her to log into the SmartShop. She then started shopping. Three items scanned and the app deleted itself. I tried re-loading it and it wouldn't work. So we were back to putting everything on my bill. As we went around the shop several items I scanned would bring up an error code, so I had to scan most items twice or three times. Eventually, went to pay and the QR code wasn't working! Staff member said there had been problems, and tried to help me. In the end it rejected my numerous attempts and he said he would have to scan a certain number of items. He started to do this, and when he had nearly finished, one item wouldn't scan; this rejected the whole thing! He told us we would then have to go to a cashier, empty everything out of our bags, and have a cashier scan our shopping! What a complete waste of time! Never mind the fact that we were using the app to prevent handling the shopping repeatedly due to covid! If there had just been a notice up in the shop saying that the app wasn't working correctly, we would have been able to make a choice of how we shopped. This would have saved time, hassle, and my Mums embarrassment of not having to be stopped and have her bags checked by a security guard! Not good enough Sainsburys!!
