Articles
Shopping Cart design update
4/3/2001
The future of shopping carts is here, bringing safer, smarter designs complete with theft prevention and marketing systems
By Judy Colbert
Lots of things have changed in the six decades since Sylvan Goldman patented the shopping cart. Gone are the Ford days when you had a choice of metal or metal. In fact, gone are the days of just choosing between plastic and metal.
Instead, you have a variety of colors, sizes, and convenience offerings including child seats, motorized carts, germ protection, and perhaps, most important, theft prevention.
Chris Johnson, product manager for Rehrig International in Richmond, VA, the world's largest manufacturer of plastic shopping carts, now offers the Rehrig Roadsterþ that holds two children, from two to six years of age, in five-point harnesses while facing each other. They come with skid-resistant seating, padded handgrips, child-friendly graphics, and a lower center of gravity. Child seats have been around for a while, but this cart has the seats outside of the cart, yet the baskets are designed to nest saving valuable floor space.
As excited as Johnson is about this product, he's even more thrilled that Rehrig now offers baskets with Microban, an antimicrobial agent that prevents bacteria from reproducing, thus providing "a cleaner basket between cleanings." The antimicrobial treatment adds about $4 to the price of the cart. Considering a University of Arizona survey found shopping carts the third most contaminated public surface, after playground equipment and bus rails/arm rests and that customers are greatly concerned about cleanliness, that's an important factor. Roadster buyers include ToysRUs and Babies & Kids.
Supercart, of Wellesley Hills, MA, also produces a plastic cart, but their cart is all plastic, not just a plastic basket on a metal frame.
By the time Martin Deale, president and CEO of Supercart, and his company finished a three-year study about the needs of retailers and their customers, he knew "everyone hated how heavy shopping carts are, how they rust, have wobbly wheels, jam together when they're nested, and how they trash cars in the parking lot."
That's when his designers came up with an all-plastic cart to compliment the improvements stores have made in their layout, merchandise display, lighting and music. Supercart's all-plastic cart is "lighter weight and more maneuverable and 95% of the people surveyed preferred it to any cart that has metal in it.
"Metal frames twist out of shape causing the jamming. One of the properties of plastic is it has a memory and always retains its original mold. This is a significant improvement because the cart can't twist out of shape."
Deale says the biggest mistake grocery store owners make is buying cheap carts. "They're looking at a capital outlay, but the biggest cost is maintenance over the life of the cart. You pay a few dollars more for a Supercart that's guaranteed for life that they'll never jam and never rust, and then they don't have to replace wheels or recoat for rust and corrosion or deal with liability claims for damage to cars. Our carts are more durable and parts can be replaced, unlike metal carts where if it's damaged, it has to be trashed. Supercart's specially designed 'bumper' and its plastic body make damage to cars, people, clothing, refrigerators and shelving a thing of the past. This not only saves money, but it improves customer relations as well."
Supercart reports that during a two-year test period, thefts for Supercarts were less than half of metal carts because there's no scrap metal value and they can't be used for BBQ grills.
Shopping cart theft can be a big problem because of cart loss and increased related expenses, but also because neighbors complain about the eyesore, and local governments are enacting legislation imposing fines for stray carts and removal costs.
Cart theft prevention can be as simple as Rehrig's solution of adding a vertical pole to the cart that's taller than the store door, thus preventing the cart from leaving the store.
Another cart theft prevention system is The Wheel, from Gatekeeper, Irvine, CA, which uses a locking or self-braking front wheel mechanism that's activated once the cart crosses a loop buried at the perimeter of the store parking lot, or wherever management designates. The wheel is unlocked via a hand-held cart key which transmits an unlock command. An estimated cost for a grocery store with 200 carts ranges from $20,000 and up, a small amount considering the cost of carts, paying for retrieval and the need to overstock carts to assure a sufficient supply during peak shopping hours, allowing for the number of carts that have been taken off property. According to Gatekeeper, a 200-cart supermarket with a moderate loss situation could be spending $75,000 and up annually on cart expenditures and retrievals, and realize a 75% savings with the installation of one of their systems. Installation of the cable and retrofitting between 200 and 250 carts can usually be accomplished in one day.
The CAPS (Cart Anti-theft Protection System) from Carttronics of San Diego, incorporates a peripheral antenna to actuate an electronic braking system to stop carts from leaving the store site. Cart-mounted signs, parking lot signs, and painted striping on the pavement at pedestrian and driveway exits, all work toward educating the customer that the system is in place.
As Giant Food Inc., a 180-store chain based in Landover, MD, has built new stores and upgraded old ones, they've eliminated the posts that kept carts at the storefront in compliance with ADA regulations. They've gone to a corral system, but will be testing the Carttronics system in two stores, starting in May 2001. Barry Scher, Vice President of Public Affairs for Giant Food Inc. says they buy 5,000 to 6,000 carts a year, both for new stores and to replace worn-out carts, but many to replace those that have been removed by shoppers and vandals.
Another theft prevention option is the K-2000 system from Kart Saver of Sacramento that causes the cart to travel in circles if removed from the parking lot. Kart Saver designs, develops, and manufactures such infrared products as the K-Check under-basket detection system that signals the cashier when it detects merchandise on the bottom shelf of the cart. The infrared device is mounted on the bottom shelf of the cart, and transmits the information electronically to the cashier as the cart enters the check stand. Recently off the drawing board and on its way to manufacturing is anther infrared technology by Kart Saver, the "Audio Marketing System." With a transmitter mounted on the front of the cart, a signal is sent to speakers located on the retailers' shelves. Recognizing where the cart is, the customer hears a 3-5 second promotional message that's been selected by the store management or its suppliers.
Still another product from Kart Saver is an infrared system that pages cashiers to their registers when the check stand lines become crowded. Rather than assigning a front-end manager to oversee the traffic flow, an infrared transmitter mounted on the front of the shopping cart transmits a signal to a receiver inside a track mounted on the ceiling. The system recognizes the number of carts in line and when the retailer's preset number of customers is reached, the system pages a cashier through a vibrator pager. A personnel detector at the register recognizes when the cashier is present.