lazy customers and carts

[Rine]

One thing that makes me angry is lazy customers who don't put their carts into the cart corral. I did not see this customer, but I witnessed what their laziness did.

I was sitting in my car waiting to make a right into the turning lane at my local wal-mart. It was very windy yesterday. Suddenly, this gray shopping cart zooms passed me, narrowly missing my car and the line of cars sitting in the turning lane for the light. The cart rolls out into the intersection, causing much swerving and near hits by other cars. It rolls to a stop in the middle of the east bound lanes of the highway.

Cars go around it and then a daring person gets out the their car from where it was in the turning lane, darts into the road and grabs the cart, pulling it from the road. He left it on the grassy shoulder and gets back into his car in time for the light change.

One lazy person almost caused several accidents. Would it have been so hard to put it in the corral or to at least pull it onto the many grassy strips in the parking lot? Just don't leave it right there on the concrete, especially in such windy weather! Gah--what a jerk to do that!

[blas]

I've seen it happen before at my local Wal-Mart. We had some nasty windy weather for a few weeks where it went to double digit below zero weather. Wind like that is sure to power shoot carts.

While making the daring adventure (and luckily my car started!) to Wal-Mart, I had the same experience as you. I never saw who did it, but there were random carts zooming everywhere. It was scary like they were possessed or something, lol. And there were carts in parking stalls.....just a mess!

[ditchdj]

I used to see that ALL the time when I used to live in Ohio. Anyone who lives in that state knows that it gets VERY blasting windy during the spring and fall (sometimes to the point where it can literally knock a toddler down!) and I'll go to a Kroeger or Meijer and watch all these renegade carts rolling around all over the lot like a huge bumper car room, bouncing off other cars.

[Gurndigarn]

While making the daring adventure (and luckily my car started!) to Wal-Mart, I had the same experience as you. I never saw who did it, but there were random carts zooming everywhere. It was scary like they were possessed or something, lol. And there were carts in parking stalls.....just a mess!

Well, most WalMarts don't collect the carts all that often, at least not the ones I've seen (and I get to see about a quarter of all of them in a one-hour drive radius from my house at some point!)

[zzapp the witch]

Heh, and today I had the AM at Fred Meyer give me a big thank you for pushing my cart, and a couple of carts on the way, into the cart corral.

What annoys me is when you're some place like Lowe's, that has the dual corral, one big side for the lumber, sheetrock and flat carts, one little side for regular carts, and the big side will be full of little carts with the big all over the damn place cause they have no where to go. I think those big ones would do a lot more damage to cars than the plastic ones. Wow, let's play a size matching game, just like in kindergarten! Swear those customer would fail.

Our local Walmart is miserable at getting carts, I've often debated starting an exercise plan for myself that would consist of doing nothing but collecting carts in the Walmart parking lot all day, cause when I worked there and got called to get carts, I got quite the leg workout. Don't know what kind of trouble I could get in though.

[Becks]

I wish my store had cart corrals. Honestly. I really do think that I work at the only supermarket in the free world that doesn't have anything even close to cart corrals.

[Dave1982]

Yet anotehr reason why you should have to put a deposit on your shopping cart. I've seen stuff like this at airports and I've heard of it being done at supermarktes in Europe. Basically, the carts should be locked to a a steel rail with a chain. If you want a cart, you should have to deposit a sum of money, say 1 or 2 dollars, into a small lock box on the cart, which will then release the chain Then when you finsih, you bring the cart back, reinsert the chain, and presto, you get a full refund. (As opposed to at most aiports I'e seen this at, where you pay $2 and only get a 50 cent refund).

This way, there's actually an incentive to bring the cart back and secure it properly; you'd have to be willing to forfeit your deposit to leave the cart wherever.

(And to prevent fights among employees to collect and wayward carts, I think that deposits from carts employees are forced to collect should go towards a general associate fund, not right into their pockets).

[blas]

They have quarter deposits at the local Aldis around here, not sure if it's a universal Adli's thing though.....

[BookstoreEscapee]

One store in my area did that several years ago. It didn't last long. (It was a quarter, and you got it back when you put the cart away.) Maybe they should do like at the mall when you borrow a wheelchair. They hang on to your license or something else important. You HAVE to go back for it.

[Bella_Vixen]

They hang on to your license or something else important. You HAVE to go back for it.

Not really. A duplicate license around here costs $9 or so. I can't tell you how many people leave their licenses (original and duplicates) behind.

[SongsOfDragons]

Yet anotehr reason why you should have to put a deposit on your shopping cart. I've seen stuff like this at airports and I've heard of it being done at supermarktes in Europe. Basically, the carts should be locked to a a steel rail with a chain. If you want a cart, you should have to deposit a sum of money, say 1 or 2 dollars, into a small lock box on the cart, which will then release the chain Then when you finsih, you bring the cart back, reinsert the chain, and presto, you get a full refund.

We do that in England. I've never seen a supermarket that DOESN'T...

Although my university sells these little uni-stamped keyrings with discs the same size, thickness and weight of a pound coin you can use in trollies. Saves you having to root around in your purse and you won't be willing to sacrifice your nifty little keyring.

[Becks]

They have quarter deposits at the local Aldis around here, not sure if it's a universal Adli's thing though.....

Aldi's here in NJ does it, too. Food Basics has the same setup, but...the carts are free...even though they have the quarter slot and everything.

[Irving Patrick Freleigh]

They have quarter deposits at the local Aldis around here, not sure if it's a universal Adli's thing though.....

It most likely is. The Aldi's on the other side of the mall from my store does that.

No, it does not work as well as you would think. Their carts still occasionally end up loose in our parking lot. If I'm doing carts and I see an Aldi's cart loose, I'll return it and pocket the quarter somebody deposited to use it.

On a good day, I can make a buck or two from loose Aldi's carts.

[Mark Healey]

(As opposed to at most aiports I'e seen this at, where you pay $2 and only get a 50 cent refund).

I just had an evil idea. Use the cart and hang around the machine until someone wants one. Ask them for $1.50 and give them the one you just rented.

[SuperDan]

Yes, the quarter-locks on the carts at Aldi are a company-wide thing. Around here most people at Aldi do return their carts for the quarter, but where I used to live it was pretty common to still see loose Aldi carts.

At my store my obsessive compulsive self has positioned the cart corrals to insure that the need to walk to a cart corral is kept to an absolute minimum for the customers. Specifically, we have angle parking with 17 spots on each side of the aisle. I've arranged the corrals in a checker pattern so every other row of parking stalls has a cart corral both at the 4th/5th stall (angle parking, so each row has a stall on one side that backs up to a stripey wedge, then a match on the other side at the other end) from both the north end and from the south end, and the rows between have a corral in the 9th/10th spot from the north end (as close to the middle as I could get without straddling spots). We still have our lazy people though.

Most people don't realize--or at least don't care--how bad of a combination strong wind is with a 50-lb metal object on wheels. Wind WILL whip a cart around even if you place it in a corral. The best policy when returning your cart is to push it all the way through to the end of a cart corral with an end bar or end gate, or to the center of a cart corral that is open all the way through. If there are carts present already, for the love of Mike please nest them together. This still isn't a failsafe against strong wind, but it definitely helps. But for some reason my customers refuse to nest the carts together.

A store of another chain near my house puts up huge signs on both the entrance and exit doors on windy days begging customers to return their carts all the way to the building on windy days.