05/12/2019
All grocery stores should do this. Instead of using a quarter, the customer should have to use their credit card and their benefits card. As a Loss prevention Professional and an Asset Protection professional, I see a need for this. for the following reasons,
(1) The grocery store loses customers when the shopping carts are all over the parking lot obstructing parking spaces. Customers go elsewhere to shop.
(2) The carts get damaged during bad weather, such as snowstorms. During a heavy snowfall the plows cannot see them on the ground covered in snow.
(3) In heavy winds, the shopping carts blow into parked vehicles causing damage, and costing the grocery stores to lose money.
(4) I have witnessed customers fling shopping carts carelessly across the parking-lot missing the cart hut, and hitting other vehicles. The grocery store has to make a sacrifice, either pay the customers for damage, don't pay, and lose a customer, or face legal litigation, and negative press coverage, which harms and tarnishes the grocery stores reputation
(A Major Loss ofCustomers)
(5) Theft Prevention. Although there are security devices to prevent customers from walking off the property with shopping carts, not every grocery store has them, nor can they afford them.
(6) To prevent them from rolling down embankments, It is not safe for an employee to climb down an embankment of any size in order to retrieve them. If an employee climbs down an embankment and gets injured, that is another loss to the grocery store.
(7) To prevent vandalism after hours. A damaged cart is a loss.
In this day and age not every grocery store or major retailer who provides shopping carts to customers employ cart retrievers due to budgets restraints, The stores that do usually have cart retrievers on duty during the busiest shopping days and hours. In some stores, it is the responsibility of the store manager to retrieve the shopping carts, especially once the store closes for business at the end of the evening, and throughout the night time if the store is a 24 hour operation.
In a few select stores, shopping cart retrieval duty is given to the security guard or loss prevention associates.These losses get passed on to the consumers, and results in lower wages paid to the employees.
The whole problem here is that not many of us worry about suffering a loss in our own personal life. We don't want to believe that a loss to our own possessions will happen to us from a storm, a theft, a fire, or any kind of disaster. When we read these articles we get angry. Well... This is a disastrous loss to the grocery stores that they see and feel.
This is a loss to you the consumer, that you physically see, and monetarily feel, but don't feel or see through the eyes or payroll of a business. Paying higher prices for groceries and all other merchandise is a disastrous loss to us all, especially when these what you would call minor losses, add up resulting in retailers permanently closing their doors.
It cripples communities, that are impoverished, as these stores are the only ones around for miles, and transportation is not affordable, or hard to come by. This disaster affects all of us. It gets passed on to local and state governments, who are expected to find solutions. Those costly solutions get passed on to us tax payers.
When these shopping carts are intentionally vandalized, the stores become crime victims. As crime victims they eligible to receive victims compensation pay from the state, just as any of us would be if we were to become victims of a crime.
Nick: I'm so tired of dealing with this whenever I go grocery shopping in Poughkeepsie.
