Grocery Cart Theft

[Varmint]

I just ran to the nearest grocery store to get some fake potato chips and noticed that the shopping carts had been retrofitted with a device designed to make the cart inoperable once the cart is taken beyond the parking lot perimeter. The company that developed this technology is Gatekeeper Systems. Apparently, this works the same way the fenceless dog gating systems work: when the cart is taken beyond an electronic "border", one of the front wheels locks up. Pretty cool, although I didn't take it for a test run.

[Mayhaw Man]

I just ran to the nearest grocery store to get some fake potato chips and noticed that the shopping carts had been retrofitted with a device designed to make the cart inoperable once the cart is taken beyond the parking lot perimeter.  The company that developed this technology is Gatekeeper Systems.  Apparently, this works the same way the fenceless dog gating systems work: when the cart is taken beyond an electronic "border", one of the front wheels locks up.  Pretty cool, although I didn't take it for a test run.

I hope nobody in New Orleans sees that device. I have always enjoyed the trucks belonging to various grocery stores cruising the neighborhoods looking for their shopping carts. Something so wrong about it tht it almost seems right (actually, that would explain alot of what goes on around here). It seems to work kind of like the yellow bikes in Amsterdam, but not to the advantage of the stores, as I am sure that it costs them a ton of bread keeping up with those carts.

[GG Mora]

Apparently, this works the same way the fenceless dog gating systems work: when the cart is taken beyond an electronic "border", one of the front wheels locks up.

Actually, if it worked the same way fenceless dog gating systems work, when the cart was taken beyond an electronic border, the user would get a smart little electric shock.

I kind of like that idea.

[hillbill]

They had something like that at the Lowes that just opened near me. I thought that it was just a scare tactic, like slapping an "ALARM" sticker on a house without an alarm. One of the (rear?) wheels had what looked like an external brake but I figured anyone who wanted to could tear it off with a snipper or just replace it with a new caster, so if it was for real I imagined it had to have more symbolic than practical value.

[vengroff]

My local grocery uses this system. On most busy weekend afternoons they are completely out of working carts. That's not to say they are completely out of carts. It just means that the twenty or so sitting on the sidewalk in front of the store are unusable because their locking mechnisms have malfunctioned and rendered them unusable.

[hollywood]

We have these all over LA. It's a pain in the ass if you were used to walking to the store and wheeling your stuff back home. Now you have to drive or bring your own cart.

[hillbill]

I have a love-hate relationship with google.

Supermarkets turn to tech to curtail cart theft

Forget shoplifting — it was shopping cart-lifting that was costing Schnucks Markets a fortune.

"Since installing Carttronics, we have not lost a single cart," said Keith Brown, manager of the Schnucks store at City Plaza on the north side of St. Louis.

Retail industry officials say a shopping cart is taken from a U.S. store every 90 seconds. That adds up to 1.8 million carts worth $175 million.

At many stores using the Carttronics system, sales have increased because "carts are actually available at peak shopping periods," Gallace said. Retaining carts helps Schnucks to keep its costs down and therefore keep its prices down, Willis said.

Carttronics

The system is built around a rugged, computerized caster and a buried perimeter antenna. The system incorporates an RF transmitter that generates a low frequency, low power signal along the antenna line to define the limit of cart travel. When a CAPS-protected cart rolls within a few feet of the antenna line, an integrated braking shell is electronically released to roll down under the wheel, where it locks in place to disable the cart.

This is another retrofitted system, unlike the one I saw at Lowes.

[Varmint]

I have a love-hate relationship with google.

Supermarkets turn to tech to curtail cart theft

Forget shoplifting — it was shopping cart-lifting that was costing Schnucks Markets a fortune.

"Since installing Carttronics, we have not lost a single cart," said Keith Brown, manager of the Schnucks store at City Plaza on the north side of St. Louis.

Retail industry officials say a shopping cart is taken from a U.S. store every 90 seconds. That adds up to 1.8 million carts worth $175 million.

At many stores using the Carttronics system, sales have increased because "carts are actually available at peak shopping periods," Gallace said. Retaining carts helps Schnucks to keep its costs down and therefore keep its prices down, Willis said.

Carttronics

The system is built around a rugged, computerized caster and a buried perimeter antenna. The system incorporates an RF transmitter that generates a low frequency, low power signal along the antenna line to define the limit of cart travel. When a CAPS-protected cart rolls within a few feet of the antenna line, an integrated braking shell is electronically released to roll down under the wheel, where it locks in place to disable the cart.

This is another retrofitted system, unlike the one I saw at Lowes.

Schnucks??? Would you really ever shop at a place called Schnucks?

[Fat Guy]

"That adds up to 1.8 million carts worth $175 million"

Okay, that's a lot of damn carts. Given the number of people who will read this thread, that means most likely we have a number of people reading along here who are in possession of at least one grocery cart. Would anybody be willing to cop to that?

This doesn't seem to happen much in New York City or the surrounding areas. In the city, for the most part, you can't even get a cart out the door of a grocery store. You have to carry your groceries, bring your own little cart, or have them delivered. In the suburbs, the supermarkets are out on highway strips so there's really noplace to go beyond the parking lot, and even a big minivan like my Grand Voyager can't accommodate a full-sized grocery cart. At least I don't think it can. Maybe on its side?

[hillbill]

Schnucks???  Would you really ever shop at a place called Schnucks?  

It belongs in the funny name list, for sure.

[vengroff]

Retail industry officials say a shopping cart is taken from a U.S. store every 90 seconds. That adds up to 1.8 million carts worth $175 million.

Over what time period? A day? A year? The known history of the universe?

1.8 million carts at one every 90 seconds second means 162 million seconds, which is 45,000 hours, which is 1875 days, which is 5.13 years. I wonder why they picked that amount of time out of the air and didn't mention it.

[Malawry]

The largest apartment building in the District has a collection of grocery carts that tenants use to move their goods in and out of the building. When I lived in the city I shopped mostly at a crappy Safeway (the Soviet Safeway for those of you playing along) and all their carts had a pole sticking up from them that made the carts too tall to push out the door of the store. The Giant in my old, inner DC burb used to prevent people from taking carts off the patio outside the front door of the store by installing a fence. You had to use parcel pick-up if you had too many groceries to carry in a single trip. Then Giant was purchased by a huge multinat corporation which renovated many stores, including the one where I live. Now you can take carts out to the lot and a few parking spaces have been replaced by cart corrals. I wonder if they are suffering more cart theft as a result.

What does a shopping cart cost?

[vengroff]

What does a shopping cart cost?

Apparently about $100.

Seems to me the real way to make money isn't by inventing shopping cart security devices, it's by figuring out how to manufacture $50 shopping carts.

[Fat Guy]

No, the easiest thing to do would be to have the death penalty for shopping cart theft. A few well-publicized executions would cost very little money and would put a stop to the problem rather quickly.

[vengroff]

No, the easiest thing to do would be to have the death penalty for shopping cart theft. A few well-publicized executions would cost very little money and would put a stop to the problem rather quickly.

And how would that make me as much money as selling some bent metal rods with four wheels attached for $50?

[hillbill]

This doesn't seem to happen much in New York City or the surrounding areas. In the city, for the most part, you can't even get a cart out the door of a grocery store.

In Staten Island the carts are free-range at most of the major supermarkets. They have those stick-a-quarter-in thingies that are obviously not going to stop a thief. At Western Beef and in one Waldbaums in a poorer area (near where I live) the carts are kept corralled behind barricades. If I remember correctly some of the other supermarkets, Pathmark in particular kept the carts barricaded years ago, before the quarter things. They still have partial barricades at one or two so it's likely they were kept enclosed once.

[Fat Guy]

Oh, you're talking about making money from selling carts, as opposed to making money for supermarkets. Got it.

That's easy. If you want to make more money selling carts, figure out a way to include porn.

[Malawry]

Rick Bayless for supermarket carts.

[GG Mora]

I'm guilty of stealing a shopping cart, 25 years ago. And I had accomplices. We were freshman in art school, living in a tenement, no car. School was within easy walking distance. But in our second week we had to do laundry and go grocery shopping and the nearest combo was 5 miles away...by bus. So we loaded up our laundry and hopped the bus. And while our clothes were goin' around, we went next door to Shaw's and did a major grocery shop. Trouble was, when we got all done, there was no way three of us could wrassle all that back onto the bus. So we loaded our laundry into the cart with the groceries and went 4-wheelin' back home. The most direct route took us through the city park and across a bunch of fields. We conceived our first short film, crossing the fields with our cart like a covered wagon and...oh, never mind. But we kept the cart. Anyone who went to art school without a car knows that there's way too much paraphernalia to schlep around on foot, so the cart came in handy. We used it for two years until we sucked in a roomate with a 62 Volvo sedan. And he could cook, too.

[Fat Guy]

Good news for you: it appears the statute of limitations on shopping-cart larceny is exactly 25 years. So you're safe.

Has anybody swiped one in the past 5.13 years?

[pjs]

What does a shopping cart cost?

Apparently about $100.

No, their math is wrong there too. Twenty years ago carts went for a c-note. I'm guessing around $200 for a new cart today and about $100 ea. for the invisible fence retrofit.

The steel mesh makes excellent barbeque grates BTW.

PJ

[Jason Perlow]

No, the easiest thing to do would be to have the death penalty for shopping cart theft. A few well-publicized executions would cost very little money and would put a stop to the problem rather quickly.

Oh yeah, they have places that do that. They're called "Singapore"

[Fat Guy]

I'm having trouble formulating a google search that will get me to pricing information on grocery carts. The terms "shopping cart" and "grocery cart" have too many other, more common uses online. Anybody else want to take a crack at it?

[pjs]

I'm having trouble formulating a google search that will get me to pricing information on grocery carts. The terms "shopping cart" and "grocery cart" have too many other, more common uses online. Anybody else want to take a crack at it?

Already tried and gave up.

PJ

[Mistinguett]

I tried (just for fun) "grocery cart retail price" and this is one of the first results:

http://www.factorysupply.net/carts.htm

It looks like the regular plastic ones are $135.