Stores Employing New Ways To Stop Shopping Cart Theft (electric Fences)

[The Straight Story]

Stores Employing New Ways To Stop Shopping Cart Theft

COLUMBUS, Ohio — Some grocery stores are going to new lengths to keep their shopping carts from going home with customers.

Giant Eagle installed an electric fence around four of its Columbus stores this year, in an effort to help the carts from being stolen, 10TV's AJ Smith reported.

The fences work with a device installed on the carts. If the cart crosses an invisible boundary along the store's parking lot, the cart's wheels lock up.

The electric fences have been installed at the company's Neil Avenue, Busch Boulevard, North High Street and Lincoln Village locations.

...
"Human beings being treated like a dog," Smith said. "I think it's stupid because you never know when somebody might need help and they can't carry it, especially with an elderly person. What if they have no choice but to take the cart with them? If they can't take the cart, it's hard on them."

http://www.10tv.com/live/content/local/stories/2010/11/02/story-columbus-giant-eagle-cart-theft.html?sid=102

[meegbear]

1. This is a "new way"?

This has been around for years. Wake up Columbus!

[madmax]

2. ok, so why this rampant shopping cart theft.

who the hell wants a shopping cart? The wheels, selling the metal - whatever the hell it is. Or are homeless people taking them to carry their meager belongings.

[hobbit709]

5. Around here a lot of people walk the groceries home in them.

It's easier to push a cart 4 blocks than carry those plastic bags-especially when it's a hundred outside.

[madmax]

8. Ahh, thanks for clarifying that - I had no clue . nt

[hobbit709]

3. Smash the electronics on the cart, cart keeps moving.

[CTyankee]

4. Whatever happened to those fold up "carts" that you could pull behind you?

They used to be in use in urban areas...I had one myself when I lived in NYC and had to transport groceries via walking from the store to my apartment. They were pretty lightweight and I imagine they could be made even lighter. You could fold them flat and store them behind a door. It worked!

[hobbit709]

6. If you barely have enough money for groceries $20 is a lot of money.

[CTyankee]

12. But I've seen people in poor areas here in New Haven have them but it's been a few years.

So my guess is that it isn't the cost, it's the lack of availability of the cart.

[-..__...]

13. That still doesn't justify thievery.

How often does the thief return the cart to the store?

Who absorbs the cost of stolen carts?

Does anyone believe the store should write off the loss, or is it more practical to raise prices and compensate for the thefts?

Mendoca's seen the carts--which cost between $75 and $100--used as barbecue pits, go-carts, laundry trolleys and shelters.

"They wind up mostly in apartment complexes, low-income housing and bus stops," he says. Or anywhere else where the person doing the grocery shopping is unlikely to own a car.

For Robin Webb, manager of the Safeway on Wolfe and Old San Francisco roads in Sunnyvale, the carts represent an $8,000 to $10,000 cut into his profits each year. But Webb is one of a growing number of grocery store managers employing new technology to keep carts from rolling away

According to the Food Marketing Institute in Washington, D.C., annual losses total more than $800 million globally and $15 million in California. San Francisco, incidentally, loses more carts to theft than any other city. The infamous Marina District Safeway loses more carts than any other Safeway in the nation.

http://www.metroactive.com/papers/metro/06.03.99/shoppingcarts-9922.html

[madmax]

9. I remember the older ladies with them a while ago

wonder if they are still made. We're such a mobile society - who walks? Not that, that's a good thing but...

[Bitwit1234]

7. What some places do is charge 25 cents for a cart they

hook the carts up to a long chain. Each cart has a slot for the quarter which when inserted unlocks the lock. Then you take the cart back put it in the line of chains and lock one of the locks and you get your quarter back. The stores I have been to with this don't loose a lot of carts.

[madmax]

10. Yes, we had those in NJ

[AngryAmish]

11. Had these in Chicago for about ten years.