July 17th, 2007
A thought: isn’t it fascinating that grocery stores make you put a quarter or a loonie into the grocery cart to unlock it, so you’ll put the cart away when you’re done to get the money back – and it works? I find it totally interesting that this tactic actually works. People really do return the cart when there’s money on the line. But they really shouldn’t. I mean, come on. It’s, what, a quarter? A buck at most. I would pay one dollar for a grocery cart, if I were the kind of person who wanted a grocery cart. I’m also quite willing to pay twenty-five cents for the luxury of not walking my cart through the parking lot to the return area. Why aren’t more people like me?
This is the clincher: Basically everyone I see at the grocery store wastes money. They buy chips and gum and little plastic clips for keeping the half eaten bag of chips fresh – so obviously they’re not penny pinchers. Yet they still return the cart for that single coin. If you think big picture, it really doesn’t make a lot of sense. If you care so much about that dollar, for god’s sake buy rice instead of frozen pizza!
Maybe other people are just more considerate than me and want to return the cart to be nice… but no. Remember the bad old days, before the coin slot? Remember loose carts all over the parking lot? I tell you the coin thing works. I have no idea why but it does. I stand alone as the rebel who leaves the cart wherever, coin in place. Yes, I’m that jackass. But think of all the money I’m giving away… really I’m a philanthropist! You should aspire to be more like me!
Rebel girl, you may find your car has been dinged by a roaming shopping cary one day as kharmic payback.
As an aside to your post, my store now has another special attachment on the buggies, so that you can’t even take them off the parking lot without them locking up. More security to keep your property shopping cart free!
I have noticed similar devices to what Bronn has mentioned durring my stay out here in Surrey (house sitting for the boss). But I was always a cart returner, even before the coinage issue. Personally I hate the coin thing since I usually dump my change into a bucket at home. I have actually avoided places requiring “the coin” because I knew I did not have one and gone to a different store that I knew was more trusting.
Yeah, I’ve seen the invisible fence too. That’s fine – I don’t actually want to take the cart anywhere.
I have also been stranded without a coin. How frustrating – I’m standing there in the parking lot like an idiot because I don’t have a loonie on me so I actually cannot shop. I should put specific cart coins in the car and just leave them there. You know, if I were organized.
Maybe if you had returned your last cart you would have had a coin. That’s why people return theirs: so they have no problems getting a cart the next time.
Honestly.. having to pay for a cart would drive me bat-shit.
First of all.. I’m anti coin. I only carry around my cell, a 20, and a credit card. And those things fit inside my cell case.
Thankfully men love coins.. so my husband winds up getting rid of all my change.
I must say, you’ve disappointed me greatly here. I very much hate having to get out of my car to move a cart out of the stall I’m trying to park in, and it’s a matter of public record that when I rule this land, leaving shopping carts in parking stalls will be a capital offense. You’ve been warned.
I am suitably shamed.
But I will say this – usually I take the skytrain to the safeway at Commercial, so when I leave the store and abandon my cart it’s almost always in the covered area by the door, the area between the store doors and the sidewalk. So my cart isn’t actually in the parking lot, it’s on the sidewalk. But the point is taken: I am a jerk.
I bring the cart back for the dollar because then I have a dollar coin in the car for the next time I go.
And c’mon, you wouldn’t spend 30 seconds returning the cart? That’s $120/hour in work right there and I don’t think you’re making that right now. If you saw a dollar on the ground would it not be worth it to bend over to pick it up?
I am unconvinced by your argument. I actually don’t make, and never will make, 120/hour returning carts. There’s no profit in it at all, only prevention of a loss. A small loss at that. I think of it as paying .25 for some convenience. I pay much more than that for other conveniences in life – like my car, for example.