Lidl — Local services in Greenville

I was initially impressed with Lidl when this location opened. The bakery was superb, the produce and meat were excellent, and the staff were friendly and helpful. Unfortunately, there's been a shift in the culture at this store. They seem indifferent about customers service, many employees try to avoid eye contact with shoppers (a la WalM*rt) so they don't have to help or answer questions, and there are NEVER enough checkout lines open.

The addition of self checkout seemed positive, but the system is buggy and announces that someone has been notified to assist you for about every third item, even though it scanned correctly. Since there's no dedicated oversight of the self checkout lines, when the scanner arbitrarily summons help, you're stranded until the overworked checkout clerk in the only open line sees your dilemma and overrides the scanner.

Shopping at Lidl is slowly changing from a pleasure to an endless frustration, and unless someone recognizes the problem and takes measures to fix it, I'll be going elsewhere. To be clear, the product quality has not deteriorated; only the customer service and checkout experience. I'm still hopeful that these are just growing pains amid employee turnover, but I'm starting to lose hope. Low prices alone will not always be enough. At some point, I need to be able to check out without endless glitches...

Lidl is great except for one thing - they keep changing Apple Pay to require a PIN, but not when using a debit card. Using a credit/debit card by swipe or chip is NOT safe. Look at the millions of Target customers with their card details stolen doing just that. Cash can be lost/stolen. Credit/debit cards can be lost/stolen or the store Point of Sale (POS) system compromised, like Target. How do I know how diligent Lidl is with their systems? I don't, that is the answer.

Apple Pay is the safest way to pay, bar none. An encrypted, single-use transaction is created each time you use it, and it cannot be lost or stolen.

So why does Lidl want me to be unsafe when using Apple Pay? I've complained and complained about this. Most of the time it is fine, but then sometimes (like today) it requires my PIN, which I do not want to use, and you CANNOT pay with Apple Pay without the PIN. So I had to pay with the unsafe way (chip), so they compromised my security. Why? Lidl, you need to fix this. Next time I'll just leave my groceries there and go elsewhere to pay, safely. If this keeps up, I'll go elsewhere. So sad, that you want to make your customer's financial...

I went in for steaks but I found the whole experience rather stressful. Sections were not clearly labeled nothing was in a definable area and I found myself wandering around an aldi-wannabe, without the organization. When I found, what I assume was, the steaks advertised in their circular they were tiny- vacuum- packed "things". They didn't look like steaks, despite what the labels said. I thought of getting the other things on my list but it was difficult to find anything and constantly dancing around everyone, including stocking employees, was worse than traffic on 85 heading to Spartanburg. There was no flow of patron traffic and felt suffocating and disorganized. I wasn't offered any help by the employees bustling around either. Leaving, empty handed, was stressful as I attempted nudge my way past the shoulder to shoulder lines of people trying to check out. The lines were 5 people deep and there were 3-4 lines open but you had to get past these people to get to the door. Poor building design, poor layout, pitiful quality. Nope, I'll stick to Bi-lo or go to Aldi... prices are about the...