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Why are shopping carts always broken?

cnn.com

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Re: Why are shopping carts always broken?

#191

Post by bombcar »

theginger wrote: post #102

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…

It depends on how they’re loaded into the queue - some are back loaded “fifo” from an employee door, others are “lifo” from the customer side.

FIFO is more likely to keep pushing the bad one to the front, whereas lifo will eventually have the far carts be the bad ones.

But I’ve rarely if ever had a bad cart so maybe this is an issue somewhere else. It is amazing to realize that at about $200-400 a pop, the average Walmart has something like a quarter million dollars worth of carts.

Re: Why are shopping carts always broken?

#192

Post by bombcar »

blagie wrote: post #152
Yizahi wrote: post #140

Shopping carts are always broken because the store doesn't give damn. For instance in my current city giant Auchan store has literally every single cart busted, unmaintained and completely rusted top to bottom. Similarly sized Carrefour has normal carts, mostly without any issues, just like Ikea and several other medium and small stores. Kaufland even has some fancy new carts, which not only work fine but have some m…

You can blame one middle manager. You can't blame a million middle managers. If all middle managers are doing something wrong, that's a problem of org design. The same is true across the board. One corrupt congressman? Bad apple. 100 of them in a government? Something is wrong with the way the system is set up. One bad teacher? Bad apple. Most teachers are bad? You're looking at some issue with hiring practices, trai…

All it takes is inventories of carts periodically done, and you’ve created the incentive to never take a cart out of service, because now there is paperwork involved.

If instead you can order a few new carts “when you feel low” there’s nothing preventing someone at the store putting the annoying dead cart into the dumpster.

Never underestimate the friction paperwork causes.

Re: Why are shopping carts always broken?

#193

Post by bombcar »

DebtDeflation wrote: post #186

I have literally NEVER seen anyone do preventative maintenance or repair on a shopping cart. All I ever see are attendants collecting them from around the store and parking lot, stacking them, and pushing them back to their holding pen.

It’s like pigeon nests - you never see them but they happen.

Usually it’s a cart maintenance company that comes in the middle of the night when the store is closed. Only time I’ve ever seen one is at a 24-hour store.

Re: Why are shopping carts always broken?

#194

Post by bombcar »

thsksbd wrote: post #181
chrisco255 wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not really. Walgreens and CVS are basically this, and many of them have 24 hour pharmacies.

Where in the US do you live that you have easy access to a 24 hour pharmacy? In my corner of the USA the only 24 hour pharmacy is in the children's hospital, about 15 miles away from my house. I have three hospitals with ERs within 5 miles but no pharmacy.

Walgreens has quite a few around here. It’s something they advertise.

They were much more common before Covid, when places like Walmart were 24 hours.

Re: Why are shopping carts always broken?

#195

Post by bombcar »

dsego wrote: post #163
AdamN wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the US, a drug store is a DM with a pharmacy in the back. There are way fewer independent pharmacies in the US nowadays as 'drug stores' have taken over.

Things are getting more interfused all the time, like there is this store 'farmacia' where I live, looks like a pharmacy, sells pills, but you can't pick up prescriptions because it's not a real pharmacy. Then the national postal offices sell gadgets and trinkets, likely because sending actual mail is in decline, and package delivery is better served by private delivery services. Gas stations have even started sellin…

Around here gas stations sell bread and other basic grocery things because it gets people into the store.

Our local gas station stores are bigger than the first supermarkets, probably. Multiple aisles and fresh produce, etc.

Re: Why are shopping carts always broken?

#196

Post by Cheer2171 »

thsksbd wrote: post #181
chrisco255 wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not really. Walgreens and CVS are basically this, and many of them have 24 hour pharmacies.

Where in the US do you live that you have easy access to a 24 hour pharmacy? In my corner of the USA the only 24 hour pharmacy is in the children's hospital, about 15 miles away from my house. I have three hospitals with ERs within 5 miles but no pharmacy.

Any major metropolitan area. Walgreens has dozens of 24 hour pharmacies in the Chicago metro area: https://www.walgreens.com/storelocator/find.jsp?24-hour-phar...

Re: Why are shopping carts always broken?

#197

Post by bombcar »

dayjaby wrote: post #85
rob74 wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yup, actually dm is short for "Drogeriemarkt", which could be translated as "drug market". And yes, due to legislation in Germany, they can only sell things like vitamin supplements, "real" drugs (even non-prescription ones) can only be sold in pharmacies.

My grandfather was a "Drogist" and his job was not to sell drugs, but anything pharmacy/chemistry related: "I got that oily dirt on my jacket" - "Say no more, I mix you the perfect soap for this". That feels quite the same as dm/Rossmann/.. from a customer point of view. The modern word Droge/drug does not mean what it used to mean.

Even old American writings talk of “the chemist” which is clearly an early pharmacist who has various chemicals he can mix to make medicines or house cleaning supplies.

Re: Why are shopping carts always broken?

#198

Post by jccalhoun »

wildpeaks wrote: post #187

Interesting, I didn't realize the coin locks were only a European thing.

Aldi in the USA also does the coin lock. I don't know why other stores don't do it. Maybe because Aldi is seen as the cheap store and they don't want to be associated with being cheap.

Re: Why are shopping carts always broken?

#199

Post by jmclnx »

>To combat this, grocery retailers in Europe, such as Aldi, Tesco and Lidl, have coin locks

Where I lived, decades ago one store tried this. They ended up folding because no one wanted to deal with inserting coins, why:

1. What if you had no coins ? Most people in the US dump all coins in a big jar when the get home. I would guess back then, about 30% of the people never carried coins, so the chain instantly lost some market share. Now it is more like 90%.

2. These days, just about everyone under 35 do not carry cash, never mind coins. Back then, this was not too much an issue.

3. At the time, homeless people would cruse the parking log, breaking the device to get the coin. The store would have to replace the devices often.

FWIW, where I buy food, I would sat only 10% or less carriages have issues. Years ago it was much higher but I guess the chain does something different that other chains.

Re: Why are shopping carts always broken?

#200

Post by jccalhoun »

HenryBemis wrote: post #157

This is why I was impressed that Tucker Carlson was impressed about the coin in the shopping cart. I've been to the US a bunch of times (a decade ago), and if memory serves well Walmart didn't have coins on their carts. In Europe though this mechanism exists in majority of the super markets (so I'm not surprised Russian super markets are also doing the same).

In the USA Aldi has them but I don't know of any others that do.
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