No you can't keep the cart.

[Dave in MD]

Customers come in and buy about $620 worth of parts for a car. Nice sale for me even though they kept adding more things to the list of stuff they wanted instead of tell me all at once.
I collect all the items and place them on one of our stock carts for them to use to take out to their car.
Our security guard helped them to the curb where they had pulled the car up. One of them made the comment that we should let them have the "$25" cart since they spent so much money. Our guard laughed it off as a joke and made sure the cart came back.
Hate to tell them but the cart costs about $150 or $250 and no we don't give them away with purchase.

Of course this is in a neighbourhood where the food store across the parking lot has barriers that prevent you from wheeling the grocery carts into the parking lot because people would just push them home or to the nearest bus stop.

[Rosco the Iroc]

Some peoples children.

[Pixelated]

We have five or six such carts on the ground floor of the seniors' apartment building in which I live ... I have to admit they've come in handy at times.

Having said that, I do not understand why more places don't use those "lockable" carts to keep theirs from wandering away and never returning.

[notalwaysright]

I do not understand why more places don't use those "lockable" carts to keep theirs from wandering away and never returning.

On the one hand, I agree, why not save all that payroll from cart retrieving and the money from lost or totally destroyed carts. On the other hand, the backlash would be intense. I'd completely embrace it. But what about those people with big families who fill their shopping carts? Even I sometimes take the cart to the car to unload and I'm only shopping for myself. We shop differently here than over in Europe where this practice is more common.

Back to the OP... Who would even jokingly say they should be given a store cart? Every day someone says something even stupider than the day before.

[Tanasi]

On the northern approach to my home in an area there is two 90 degree curves. in between these curves is a small cluster of raggedy houses. The ditches on both sides of the road are full grocery shopping carts from all stores. Some stores pay $5 a cart to bring them back.

[greek_jester]

On the one hand, I agree, why not save all that payroll from cart retrieving and the money from lost or totally destroyed carts. On the other hand, the backlash would be intense. I'd completely embrace it. But what about those people with big families who fill their shopping carts? Even I sometimes take the cart to the car to unload and I'm only shopping for myself. We shop differently here than over in Europe where this practice is more common.

The trolleys don't lock when they're in the car-park, they lock if you attempt to take them out of the car-park onto a public road. On the store's property is fine; try to nick it and the wheels lock up.

[Minflick]

The ones I've seen at stores that have that have a good sized sign at the store entries that announce that the cart cannot leave the parking lot, and warn people of the large yellow stripe at the lot boundaries, and it is a LARGE stripe when I've seen it out at the driveways. So, the farthest parking spot is fine, but outside the parking lot is not.

[dalesys]

As experimentally verified by my daughter, the 7th grade science teacher (in her pre-sponsible days), if you lift the trolley up in the air while crossing the boundary, it doesn't lock up. Lifting a full trolley 2-3 feet in the air is left as an exercise for the student.


For SCIENCE!

[Ironclad Alibi]

Do you think shopping carts will go the way of shopping bags?

Many places now charge for shopping bags, and encourage people to bring their own.

Some stores mentioned on here charge a deposit on their shopping carts, which gets refunded when the cart is returned.

How long before shoppers are encouraged to bring their own carts to the store? That might be a new market. Collapsible shopping carts you can fold up and put in the trunk/boot of your car. Much like the smaller ones used by people who walk to the store.

[Nunavut Pants]

... I do not understand why more places don't use those "lockable" carts to keep theirs from wandering away and never returning.

Money.

Specifically, a large up-front expenditure. If the store has to pay $75K to refit 150 carts and install the lock-up system (and unlocking system!) all at once, or they have to pay $5000/month for cart-theft-related expenses, they will chalk it up to "ongoing expenses" and keep doing what they are doing. Even though it costs more in the long term, MiM only care about the short term. (That's one of the things that makes them M iM...

[Irving Patrick Freleigh]

Do you think shopping carts will go the way of shopping bags?

Many places now charge for shopping bags, and encourage people to bring their own.

Some stores mentioned on here charge a deposit on their shopping carts, which gets refunded when the cart is returned.

How long before shoppers are encouraged to bring their own carts to the store? That might be a new market. Collapsible shopping carts you can fold up and put in the trunk/boot of your car. Much like the smaller ones used by people who walk to the store.

More of a monetary investment, and I'm not sure they could economically be made large enough for what I see shoppers pushing through the checkouts, which would require more trips to the supermarket.

Without changes in laws or shopping culture, it's a no from me.

[Mental_Mouse]

How long before shoppers are encouraged to bring their own carts to the store? That might be a new market. Collapsible shopping carts you can fold up and put in the trunk/boot of your car. Much like the smaller ones used by people who walk to the store.

My "granny cart" can probably hold as much as a shopping cart, but it probably can't handle as much weight (weaker materials). and it gets cranky if heavily loaded. It also has larger gaps in the bars -- I've seen liners for them, but you need to take those out to fold it. But once I get to the store it's a PITA while I'm shopping with a real cart.

Also, the people with cars are probably not the people who are swiping carts -- those would be the folks who are indeed walking, but don't have their own carts or are put off by the PITA factor.

[bainsidhe]

I've actually had to argue with a customer, because he felt entitled to keep one of the store's hand baskets, because he shopped often and would always use it in our store. "Sometimes there aren't any baskets when I shop", was his reasoning. The fact that his "permanently borrowing" a basket is why other shoppers were in the same situation was lost on him.

[telecom_goddess]

While I'm fortunate and haven't had to do it in many years, there was a time I had to take shopping carts home in order to get groceries home, I had NO other means to do it. And there was a long time I had to rely on friends to take me shopping. But now my partners and I have a Jeep that's only 2 years old, and very reliable, and I no longer have to rely on those other methods.

[RealUnimportant]

Paying for bags and unlocking carts are driven by separate motivations; one system bears no relation to the other. You don't even necessarily need to use real money to unlock the shopping carts, so long as it's the right shape for the lock then it'll serve its purpose - it's intended to make you put the damn things into the corral rather than scattered to the four winds around the car park, causing damage and hazardous navigation. Once the cart's returned to its resting place, your coin/token/medallion/piece of candy/whatever is released.