What was intended as a fun, viral giveaway has left many Aldi customers expressing disappointment and anger online.
This week, the grocery retailer launched its Aldi Blind Box promotion, aiming to capitalize on social media unboxing trends.
The campaign was initially pitched as a celebration of the brand’s loyal community. “The Aldi Blind Box taps into the excitement our fans already feel walking our aisles ... Our shoppers come to Aldi for value, but they also come for discovery ... With surprise unboxings more popular than ever, this is our way of helping customers discover even more favorites,” Aldi’s director of communications said in a prior announcement about the promotion.
However, excitement turned to frustration for some hopeful visitors visiting the promotional website on Day 1. Aldi had allocated close to 100 free boxes per day for the entire country. (Aldi’s rules listed 90 boxes available the first day and 99 on the second.) When the clock struck noon ET, visitors surged to the website. The entire daily inventory seems to have gone almost instantly, but the biggest point of friction for shoppers, according to comments made on social media, was the website’s digital checkout queue.
Customers reported successfully adding a box to their carts at exactly noon, only to be placed into a loading queue. Some waited between 30 and 45 minutes, expecting to complete their purchase, before finally being booted out with a “sold out” message.
On the second day, the frustration continued as shoppers raced to post their complaints on social media. One TikTok user posted a screenshot purportedly showing a “sold out” notification before the daily selection countdown had even finished, leading some users to speculate that automated shopping bots were rigging the system.
Complaints about the user experience were posted to online communities such as TikTok:
- “Hit the claim link at 12:00 on the dot. Waited 8 minutes in queue and was told it had sold out.”
- “The frustrating thing is it stuck me in a queue to check out that lasted 30 minutes before it told me they were out. I don’t get why it didn’t kick people out of the queue.”
- “I waited in line for 36 minutes and they just gave me this message. Should have booted me as soon as it sold out.”
As the backlash mounted, Aldi updated its official promotional website with a disclaimer clarifying how the queue actually works. The site now states: “If you’re directed to the checkout queue, inventory has likely already been claimed.”
This tip was echoed in a video posted by TikTok creator Jackie De Tore, who warned viewers that if they were directed to a queue, they were most likely not getting one of the 99 fiber boxes given away on Day 2. Critics posted comments that keeping thousands of hopeful customers in a digital line for an item that is already entirely gone is a massive oversight in campaign design.
The Packer reached out to Aldi for comment regarding the queue issues and customer frustration, but has yet to receive a reply.
