Grocery Cart Theft

[Ladybug]

I went grocery shopping in France a few years back and they had some system where you had to push a coin into a slot on the cart to pull your cart free from the cart corral. I think it was 5 francs. You got your coin back when you turned it in. Makes sense, I think.

[mb7o]

the quarter things should work because of the reward--people don't steal shopping carts to keep so much as they use them to roll home, so in many neighborhoods you'll find some spot with a few abandoned carts. if you get a quarter (or mabye a dollar, in France they used 10F coins which was about $2), the local homeless guy might bring the cart back to the store.

and who shops at schnucks? anyone in st. louis, they're by far the biggest chain there.

[Dave the Cook]

This link says $75 to $100:

Shopping cart story

I saw this information confirmed in a Newsweek article, but now I can't find it.

This seems really cheap to me. Checking out the sites for manufacturers (Unarco, Technibilt, United Steel & Wire) provides little information on pricing. They're apparently sold through reps. I couldn't find any reps on line.

[Fat Guy]

It stands to reason that if I can order a single model A-85 here for $135, a major chain buying thousands of carts should be able to get them for quite a bit less.

[Toliver]

The steel mesh makes excellent barbeque grates BTW.

No steel mesh in the carts at my low-rent grocery store. The carts they have are mostly molded plastic. There is a metal frame but 80 percent of the cart is thick plastic.

[Dave the Cook]

It stands to reason that if I can order a single model A-85 here for $135, a major chain buying thousands of carts should be able to get them for quite a bit less.

I wasn't saying I didn't believe it. It just seems cheap given the materials: 50 - 60 pounds of chrome-plated steel, four extra-heavy-duty five-inch casters with two or three sets of bearings each, and a good bit of welding and fabrication, even if it's done by a robot.

There does seem to be an active market in used carts, and that's probably keeping prices down.

I see plastic carts at Wal-Mart and Target, but not at the big grocery stores (Kroger, Publix).

[Fat Guy]

Yeah but from a materials and construction standpoint aren't metal shopping carts technically just made of bent and soldered wire? That kind of stuff can be done very inexpensively, even if you do it in America. I imagine slave laborers in China can pump these things out for more like $10.

[Dave the Cook]

Obviously, the facts are on your side. I'm just surprised, that's all.

But to get back to Varmint's original post: this explains something that happened to me the other day. I was driving past a newly opened home improvement store, one side of which fronts on a four-lane divided parkway. As I approached the store, a cart rolled down the entrance/exit drive of the parking lot and into the road. It skidded at an angle across one lane, then toppled over into the second, and lay there, like an opossum playing, well, opossum. The drive wasn't steep, and the cart wasn't going real fast. (I should point out that in Atlanta, stuff like this happens all the time; in fact, there is a city-wide mystery as to who is strewing ladders across expressway lanes just before morning rush hour. Until recently, it happened two or three times a week.)

On the way home today, I pulled into the lot of the store. Sure enough, there was an electrified barrier, and the (molded plastic) carts all sported ankle bracelets. The system must have hobbled the cart as it left the hands of a careless customer, and subsequently, the parking lot.

Sad, really.

[tonkichi]

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"

Ouch!!

We have other means. For example if you are caught using a mobile phone while you drive, you risk getting your driving licence suspended. The best punishment is to take away the toys. We don't want to kill tax payers.

Speaking of carts or trolleys, I was shelling out $3 each time I used one at the airport during my recent trip to USA, and I was at a few, i.e. San Francisco, Philaldelphia and Portland. At Changi airport, Singapore, trolleys are free.

[Fat Guy]

I believe it would be more accurate to say pre-paid, out of the $15 "Passenger Service Charge."

[lamb]

Our local Pathmark in NJ has the "get your quarter back when you return your cart thingy" attached to shopping carts. No one cares about their quarters, there are shopping carts all over the parking lot.

Local ShopRite has corrals to store carts in the parking lot. Some people (like me ) return them to the corrals, others think they are above putting a cart away and simply leave it to bump the car parked next to them .

I recently emailed ShopRite's HQ because I was pissed that every time I picked out a cart at our local store, it ended up with bum wheels and I had trouble pushing the damn thing once it got loaded. They referred my email to that particular store and they replied that they had just purchased over 100 new carts. Still haven't seen them. Maybe someone stole them.

[hillbill]

Local ShopRite has corrals to store carts in the parking lot.  Some people (like me  ) return them to the corrals, others think they are above putting a cart away and simply leave it to bump the car parked next to them .

Same thing here. At least at the store without quarter thingies, the places with quarters people are more likely but not always inclined to return them.

This is an aspect of (American?) (NYCmetro?) human nature I cannot understand. The stores make it as easy as possible with the outlying corrals. There are numerous similar examples in the public arena.

Long time ago I worked at Jones Beach during the summer. The #1 task at the beach was removing the endless quantities of garbage that people left behind. I went through the five stages of grief: denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance.

I used to be disgusted.

Now I try to be amused.

Edited October 22, 2003 by hillbill (log)

[MHesse]

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?

Even if a city dweller could bring a shopping wagon home, there's no place to put it.

Even the folding carts of apartment dwellers are difficult to store.

NY'ers seem to specialize in milk carton theft (not me of course). They store anything in them except milk. However, sitting on one doing nothing can result in a ticket for loitering.

--mh

[hollywood]

the quarter things should work because of the reward--people don't steal shopping carts to keep so much as they use them to roll home, so in many neighborhoods you'll find some spot with a few abandoned carts. if you get a quarter (or mabye a dollar, in France they used 10F coins which was about $2), the local homeless guy might bring the cart back to the store.

and who shops at schnucks? anyone in st. louis, they're by far the biggest chain there.

I think they tried these for a while in LA but gave up on the idea. The baggage carts at LAX seem to work on a quarter back (out of $1) basis. And there's lots of guys who are willing to grab the cart and return it in a hurry.

[hollywood]

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.

I'd say half the "missing" carts in LA are possessed by the homeless who use them to haul around recyclables and to cart their worldly possesions about. So, I suppose your modest proposal could solve 2 problems.

[foodie52]

Cart theft sounds amusing, but it affects the bottom line of your grocery store. It's called "shrink" in the grocery business. It contributes to the rising prices of the food you purchase.

Stealing a cart is the same as stealing $100 worth of groceries.

[Fat Guy]

Stealing a cart is the same as stealing $100 worth of groceries.

It probably makes sense to divide the phenomenon into at least two categories, and to look at each from both an ethical and an economic standpoint.

Some people are no doubt stealing grocery carts with the intention of keeping them, or perhaps even reselling them on a black market (there must be such a market, given the number of carts stolen per 5.3 years -- perhaps there are grocery cart "chop shops" where the carts are disassembled and sold as parts). Thus from an ethical standpoint what they're doing is the same as stealing most anything else, and from an economic standpoint the value of what they're stealing is some sort of adjusted value because, presumably, the store has made use of the cart for X amount of time already so it's a used item with a lesser value than its new value (presumably the store replaces its carts every Y number of months and doesn't really care if someone steals a cart that's one day away from the scrap heap).

But it also seems that many people are not stealing the carts per se, but are, rather, making use of the carts in a manner inconsistent with the supermarket's rules: they are using the carts to get their groceries all the way home instead of just to the door or the car; they don't want to keep the carts, they're just using them for transportation. Some stores, it seems, even have programs where they drive around and return the carts to the store. Ethics-wise, there really isn't a workable analogy to stolen goods there. And from an economic standpoint the store is presumably recovering X percent of the carts at Y cost and therefore the cost per misappropriated cart is much lower than even the present value of the used cart. Also important from an economic standpoint is that a percentage of the non-malicious "thieves" will take their business elsewhere, or will buy less food from you, if they don't have this transportation option available.

It would be interesting to know the percentage breakdown between those two scenarios as well as the costs, because it would help in crafting solutions. The outright-theft scenario is probably best combatted by security devices, law enforcement efforts, and other direct interventions. But the transportation-misuse scenario should probably be combatted in a more constructive manner: by offering a viable, more ethical alternative.

I imagine one reason why there is (I'd have to guess) virtually no shopping-cart theft in Manhattan is the widespread availability of a better option: delivery. Grocery delivery in Manhattan is virtually cost free (a couple of dollars plus a small per-bag gratuity), highly efficient (the delivery guy is likely to arrive at your door ten minutes after you do), and superior to carting your own groceries (the delivery guy has a better, more street-worthy cart -- larger wheels, more secure holding capabilities, etc. -- and he carries everything up the stairs so you don't have to). It may be that even in the less densely packed urban areas and perhaps some suburbs it would be cheaper overall for a supermarket to subsidize a sensible delivery program than it would be to install expensive security devices on the carts.

[Chad]

Okay, no one has mentioned the most salient point yet. The wheel on the no-theft carts locks when you pass an electronic barrier. BFD! When was the last time you used a grocery cart that didn't have at least one wheel that locked up? Geez, I seem to get the carts with wheels pointing sideways, wheels that won't turn, wheels that lock and unlock periodically just to see if you're paying attention and the ones with 4-wheel independent alien-guided steering. I wouldn't even notice if a no-theft cart locked up on me.

Chad

[hillbill]

I wouldn't even notice if a no-theft cart locked up on me.

[hillbill]

Some people are no doubt stealing grocery carts with the intention of keeping them, or perhaps even reselling them on a black market

Small chain stores and mom and pops often have shopping carts from major chains. Sometimes the names are spray-painted out (but still visible) but often not. I always wonder how they come into possession of these carts.

Sometimes the chains themselves have carts from other chains and I wonder why there's not a standing reciprocal policy to pull them out immediately and return them to their rightful owners.

[Mabelline]

When I read that statistic it occured that, indeed, not only is the unspecified time frame ambiguous, but think about the math- 175,000,000 divided by 1,800,000= isn't it like 970 bucks apiece? If my jackleg math's right, then they need to be leasing them to homeless folks as mobile homes.

[scrat68]

When I read that statistic it occured that, indeed, not only is the unspecified time frame ambiguous, but think about the math- 175,000,000 divided by 1,800,000= isn't it like 970 bucks apiece? If my jackleg math's right, then they need to be leasing them to homeless folks as mobile homes.

I get $97.22 per cart which seems more in line with the other prices people have found. But I have been known to be completely math challenged.

[melkor]

I get $97.22 per cart which seems more in line with the other prices people have found.  But I have been known to be completely math challenged.

It's $97.22 - your math is fine.

edit: my typing sucks today.

Edited October 24, 2003 by melkor (log)

[Mabelline]

Good thing that wasn't a question in a pop quiz! And I will herefore stay away from sharp objects like pencils & paper after midnight!

[Katherine]

Some people are no doubt stealing grocery carts with the intention of keeping them, or perhaps even reselling them on a black market

Small chain stores and mom and pops often have shopping carts from major chains. Sometimes the names are spray-painted out (but still visible) but often not. I always wonder how they come into possession of these carts.

Sometimes the chains themselves have carts from other chains and I wonder why there's not a standing reciprocal policy to pull them out immediately and return them to their rightful owners.

Probably the carts you're looking at here were actually sold off by the major chain when they were replacing all their aging carts, not stolen one-by-one.

I was in a supermarket parking lot once, not too long after they had installed cart corralls for the first time. I saw an elderly woman who could barely walk push her cart over to the edge of the lot, much further than a nearby corrall, push it up over a curb, and then down a slope toward a ditch. I'm guessing she thought she was doing someone a favor. Hmmff.