It's a different mindset needed. The bargain buys are very good as long as you realize they are not "professional" quality. I've not had much off the centre isles at Aldi because they've only recently opened a branch handily near us but Lidl have been around for years and I've had quite a few Parkside branded items. The only one that's been a disappointment was an 18 volt drill which I used rather brutally during my son's flat renovation - It's gearbox broke up within a few days. I took it back and they gave me another which also packed in before the job was done. They swapped that one too but the job was done by then using my Ryobi 18 volt similar drill which is a considerably more robust and expensive tool. The 3rd Lidl drill is with my boy who uses it to do light DIY tasks and I think it's fine for that. If something fails within warranty they are very good at just giving you another but outside warranty? So I look on them as "throw away" but possibly fixable if you persevere and get inventive when they fail.
The checkouts are absolutely all about speed. Take a look at their bar codes and you'll find they are on every surface of the item so they usually don't need to worry about orientating the item to get a read on the code bar, makes checkout much quicker. You also need to understand that filling bags at the tills - like at other supermarkets - mucks up their whole checkout system. you need to load stuff willy nilly into your trolley as quickly as you can and then pay up. Next wheel the trolley to the shelf by the tills and load your baskets from the trolley in your own time. Customer service? well, there aren't many staff and those there are will be very busy loading shelves but I've always found them very courteous and will take time to direct you to where something is or even pop through to the back shop to see if something is there but not yet on the shelf. I've no complaints.
