[econoclectic] EclectEcon: Shopping Cart Economics

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Posted by EclectEcon:
Shopping Cart Economics
http://econoclectic.powerblogs.com/posts/1171552325.shtml


   A couple of weeks ago, [1]Alex Tabarrok informed us that February is
   "Return Shopping Carts to the Supermarket Month".
   My reaction to that notice (and to the comments posted there) is to
   ask why more supermarkets don't use coin-deposit mechanisms for their
   shopping carts. For example, SuperStores in Canada do not have any
   shopping carts available in the stores. Rather, you must pick up a
   cart in the parking lot. You put a loonie ($1 coin -- hold on US
   readers, maybe you'll get one that isn't a collector coin soon) in a
   slot of the box attached to the handle of the cart. You shop. You take
   the cart back to your car and unload your purchases. Then you return
   the cart to the "cart corral" and plug something from a standard or
   another cart into the box on your cart to get your loonie back. In
   other words, it is a deposit system, not a rental system.
   There are several drawbacks to this system, which I acknowledge, but
   which I think are minor and will be overcome with time and experience:
     * When you are used to picking up a cart inside the store, it is
       disconcerting to go into the store, look around for a cart, and
       then realize you have to go back out to the parking lot to get a
       cart. It has taken me an embarrassingly high number of trips to
       learn this phase of the system.
     * It takes awhile for people to remember to keep loonies with them
       in their car for the shopping carts, and if you need change, the
       line-up at the customer service desk can be so long that you might
       have to wait what feels like an eternity (maybe 15 - 30 seconds)
       just to get a friggin' loonie in change. This has been enough to
       cause some people to say at least once, "Damn, I don't have a
       loonie; let's go to Safeway instead."
     * Watch your cart. I once left mine unattended and someone stole it.
       For a lousy loonie (of course: people respond to incentives). So I
       had to trudge back out to the parking lot and pay another deposit
       for another cart.

   Those are minor problems, though, as I see them. There are also some
   big pluses to the system.
     * There are no carts left lying around the parking lot, blocking
       parking spaces. If you don't return your cart to the cart corral,
       someone else grabs it pretty quickly to avoid the $1 deposit (and
       to get it back themselves when they finish their shopping)
     * People don't take the carts home and leave them in the front of
       their building. Or, if they do, someone else brings the cart back
       just to get (and/or save) the loonie deposit.
     * The store can save a fair amount of money by not having so many
       carts disappear. Those things are expensive because they have to
       be built to last through some serious use and punishment.
     * Also, the store can save a fair amount of money by not having to
       hire young people to round up the strays several times each day
       and return them to the corral, and from there to the store. I
       expect this saving alone amounts to at least $100/day for each
       store.

   So why don't more stores use this system? Surely we would get used to
   it eventually if we encountered it more often.

References

   1. file://localhost/var/www/powerblogs/econoclectic/posts/Return%20Shopping%20Carts%20to%20the%20Supermarket%20Month