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Why are shopping carts always broken?

cnn.com

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Re: Why are shopping carts always broken?

#101

Post by dgellow »

nerdawson wrote: post #92

> To combat this, grocery retailers in Europe, such as Aldi, Tesco and Lidl, have coin locks on their carts. Thankfully I haven’t been to a Tesco in as long as I can remember where the trolleys have been coin locked. Coin locks were made for a different era. When everything is contactless, there’s little reason to carry cash. If you aren’t paying for things in cash, you don’t have change you can use for a trolley eit…

You can just keep a coin with you. You don’t need to be paying in cash to have a 1€ coin in your wallet. But as others said, it’s common to use a token instead of an actual coin.

Re: Why are shopping carts always broken?

#102

Post by theginger »

This article misses a very big reason. It's a scheduling type problem. They rarely have good systems in place to deal with taking bad trollies out of service, so they stay in service and sit at the front of the stack, because some people notice and reject the trolley but they generally find their way back onto the stack. If you always take the first trolley of the stack and regularly find it is busted it is probably because you are often taking other people's rejected trollies

Re: Why are shopping carts always broken?

#105

Post by Accacin »

nerdawson wrote: post #92

> To combat this, grocery retailers in Europe, such as Aldi, Tesco and Lidl, have coin locks on their carts. Thankfully I haven’t been to a Tesco in as long as I can remember where the trolleys have been coin locked. Coin locks were made for a different era. When everything is contactless, there’s little reason to carry cash. If you aren’t paying for things in cash, you don’t have change you can use for a trolley eit…

Odd, the large Tesco near me has no coin required for the trolleys. However, the Lidl and Sainsbury's do. I don't carry cash, but I keep a few pound coins in the car just in case.

At least with Sains', if you ask the security guard near the door he'll unlock one for you anyway :)

Re: Why are shopping carts always broken?

#106

Post by ta1243 »

pxeger1 wrote: post #77
ta1243 wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And it's very rare to have to put a coin in a trolley as the article asserts. It's not 1999 any more.

I wouldn’t say it’s very rare. Maybe 50% of supermarkets have coinless trolleys?

Maybe it's geographic? I can't remember the last time I couldn't use a trolley due to it needing a coin

Re: Why are shopping carts always broken?

#109

Post by mathverse »

hef19898 wrote: post #75
ta1243 wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And it's very rare to have to put a coin in a trolley as the article asserts. It's not 1999 any more.

Coins are still standard in Germany so! It is extremely rare to have a broken one around where I live.

The coins are useless. It's a people problem not a mechanical one. You can unlock the cart with the tip of the key like this https://image.made-in-china.com/202f0j00GpWUwrYJnBoN/Sn-Euro... (standard european).

And I frequently do because I HATE german supermarkets anyway!

Re: Why are shopping carts always broken?

#110

Post by mathverse »

Mashimo wrote: post #93
nerdawson wrote: post #92

> To combat this, grocery retailers in Europe, such as Aldi, Tesco and Lidl, have coin locks on their carts. Thankfully I haven’t been to a Tesco in as long as I can remember where the trolleys have been coin locked. Coin locks were made for a different era. When everything is contactless, there’s little reason to carry cash. If you aren’t paying for things in cash, you don’t have change you can use for a trolley eit…

People often use little plastic coins. Even though it's worthless piece of plastic they want it back and thus deliver the carts back as well.

You can unlock the cart with the tip of the sn european key. No coins needed.
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