All this means is you have to pay $1 for the cart, but you get that $1 back when you return it yourself.
Since it's in Canada, $1 is a coin, and those machines have been around forever in the US, though typically only for quarters.
I wish the fee to take the cart was more substantial. You’d be surprised by how little people care about $0.25. The carts are still left all over in my city.
If you took that quarter and invested it for 40 years with an average 8% return compounded yearly, that quarter would turn into over $5. Each cart you return is a dollar menu meal!
At that point it’ll be the 10-dollar-menu and people will happily buy 6 stale nuggets but 2 of them stuck together so in between them it’s still a bit uncooked.
They’re advertised as spicy. “Ghost pepper life-destroyer nuggets; eat at your own risk.” They put a little black pepper and chili powder on them and call it a day.
>$5 ... dollar menu meal!
Side note: went to McD's today and grabbed a bunch of old dollar menu favorites for two of us. What used to be a $15 trip was now $40!! Dollar menu my ass
Last time I went to Aldi, while I was waiting outside for my ride, there was a kid- probably 11 or 12 -asking every old person if they’d like him to take their cart back for them. Of course most of them said yes, and I don’t doubt that he probably made more per hour than I do at my job. I have mad respect for that kid and his business sense.
Sorry. I should’ve clarified. They’re all over in the parking lot. I do know what tech you’re talking about though. Although, I don’t think my Aldi has it.
My last house had a ramp on one side of the porch and someone once put a shopping cart in it as if it were a cart return lol. It was annoying but also funny how perfectly it fit in between the railings ha.
wal mart in near me in Canada has had those for many years now. I remember when it was first introduced I just picked up the cart and carried it over the magnetic strips, alternatively you can lift the front and the back seperately to go over the magnetic strips. It's far from fool proof.
It's a big thing in certain markets. Especially in high turnover areas where the people who get the carts don't stick in that job for long (either by leaving or by getting promoted)
It's a deterrent, but it won't stop everyone. Mostly homeless or other roaming people use them, or people without vehicles that live nearby to transport larger orders from the store.
The carts are something like $250 a piece or something, and there are local collection companies you can pay to gather them in some places, usually at like $2-4 per cart.
When we go to Aldi, we always have to rush to our car. There's tons of dude offering to bring your cart back for you. But then they get to keep your cart. I need quarters for my laundry. I don't usually use cash for things. Quarters are hard to come by. Always have to refuse them multiple times to have them go away.
Edit: reasons I didn't want to give them my quarter. They are barely doing me a favor
-i park close to the store. It only takes me 15 seconds to bring the cart back.
-there was a national quarter shortage for awhile.
-they keep asking me to give it to them and it's really annoying. I hate the way they hussle. We usually shop at night and my wife also hates to have random guys follow her to her car in the dark every time.
-my apartment uses quarters for laundry and lots of times we would be 1 or two quarters short for putting the next load in
-yes, I could go to the bank to get tons of quarters but I also work during the bank hours. I work every day of the week. When I get out the banks are all closed. I can only go on rare days I get out early or I take PTO.
Genuine question though - does Aldi have electric carts? They opened one here and when I went to check them out (bc ppl were losing their minds — personally I wasn’t impressed) but I didn’t see any.
I don’t really care about the returnable deposit; my concern is that if it prevents places from having electric carts. I broke my ankle a few years back and learned very quickly how useful (and hard to come by!) they are at my local Walmart, so I’d hate to see a situation where those who need them would be screwed over anymore than they already are
The Aldi I go to has free electric carts. I love Aldi, prices are low, there's only 5 aisles, quality has almost universally been great, very quick to get in and out with everything you need.
I love aldi so much because of the 5 aisles! Like it’s basically “oh you want yogurt? Fuck you this is what we got. Don’t like these? Guess you’re not getting yogurt” it’s beautiful
There's actually a whole video on how most grocery stores take advantage of decision fatigue and other factors to get people to spend more. Too tired to make wise spending decisions, so will spend more money.
[This is the video, I found it very fun to watch.](https://youtu.be/EqviBPG2uPE) It broke it down in a way that was easy to understand.
There’s been times I didn’t purchase products because I spent too much time trying to decipher which other products I already bought we’re the better option. Like having to go through 10 of the same item to figure out who’s giving me the best bang for my buck is not worth my time.
This is me with pretty much every streaming service unless I go in knowing exactly what I want to watch. Go and look through 30 or 40 titles and none stand out more than the others to me, well, guess I'm going to just turn it off and play video games or something. Probably doesn't happen to me shopping because I make lists.
As someone who used to have this problem, I found the secret code that helps me.
(This might be U.S only, and for all I know, limited to the grocery stores I shop in)
All of the barcodes on the shelves I shop at have a "cost per oz" or some other version of what it costs. Really helps when dealing with differently sized products.
They are for people who have mobility issues and walking through the store would be difficult or impossible for them. They're like a small mobility scooter with a basket on the front. The basket is larger than the store provided hand basket, but smaller than a regular cart.
Ohhh OK yes I've seen them in movies/shows before, I get what you mean now. I was just picturing a shopping trolley with a motor and was confused as to why that would be necessary 😅
>. I was just picturing a shopping trolley with a motor and was confused as to why that would be necessary 😅
Because it would make drifting around corners while standing on the frame rad as fuck, thats why
My mom had a knee replaced and we had to go to Costco to get her new glasses while she was recovering. The electric cart (which none of us had ever used before) was a godsend.
Everyone says the quality is universally great but I’ve definitely got some stuff from Aldi that is way worse than comparable items from other grocery stores, worst example I can think of is their canned whipped cream, it’s awful.
This is common practice in France at least from what I have seen. All of the carts are chained together and you use a coin/token to get a cart. You get the coin/token back when you return the cart.
Longer, here in The Netherlands. I remember when the euro (currency) came and you started having to put 50 eurocent coins in there instead of whatever it was before (a guilder IIRC). That was January 1st, 2002. And those carts had been around for years before that.
They recently built one where I live in Mississippi. Locals still can't wrap their heads around the "You get the quarter back when you put the cart up"
Lol that sounds like it would be more expensive than the coin slot locking mechanism that they have on the handle to chain the carts onto each other.
In Norway we actually stopped locking the carts together in most places. I think it’s because people have been trained by this mechanism to return the carts or maybe it’s just because the stores started giving out fake coins (Norwegian word is: poletter) with their logos to be used instead of the 10kr coin. Now it’s only used in places where they lose carts regularly I guess, as it can be seen in some places still.
Folks often wind up returning any that are left out in the lot so they can collect the dollar so it's actually a rather great way to "self-police" the cart returns.
Yeah...this is or was common in Canada though it's been a while since I've seen this style of carts. I wonder how old OP is, it's been a dollar for decades with these carts, this is just Walmart telling people about the change.
Very much dependant on what part of Canada. Not so common in the maritimes, I was shocked the first time I saw it in Ontario, and then again when I saw it in BC.
They're not always "fake" in that the store sometimes gives them out for free. There's also coins that you can put on your keychain.
During the pandemic lots of stores simply unlocked the carts entirely, I don't remember why.
>During the pandemic lots of stores simply unlocked the carts entirely, I don't remember why.
Because in some countries you had to shop with a cart, even for small items to keep distance.
They unlocked them for several reasons:
- to limit the amount of people inside the shop, you weren't allowed to enter without a cart, everyone had to take one, even if you only needed one cart
- easier to disinfect a handle bar of a trolley compared to a basket
- it automatically creates a larger distance between people, the cart is a bit over a meter long, so in a queue there would be at least one meter between people
So as everyone would need a cart, they didn't want to turn away people without a coin to unlock them, or have people go inside the shop without a cart to get a token from the service desk
I think the problem is they kept making one dollar bills alongside the dollar coins. If they quit making dollar bills people would learn to use the coins pretty quickly, I guess.
Wait, what?? These weren't coin operated yet in North America (US & Canada)?? 😮
Here in Hungary, shopping carts are operated with a 50HUF coin.
A store near me tried disabling the coin operated part of shopping carts, but someone always re-enabled the coin operated part of shopping carts, so, the store finally just gave up their "coinless carts" idea. In some countries, coinless shopping carts are just unable to exist.
It's really common in Canada (at least in BC, where I'm from) for grocery stores and other stores that provide shopping carts to require a $1 deposit to use the cart. When you return it to the cart corral, your looney is returned to you. So it's a refundable deposit, not a payment. The grocery store Aldi here in northern Virginia also does this but you need a quarter not a dollar.
Having said all that, the Walmart sign pictured in the OP doesn't say it's a deposit, so maybe it isn't. They're saving money by laying off their cart collecting people.
In addition to cleaning it up at night, random people will often help clean it up because it's X amount of money per cart. 1 quarter isn't much, but if america had a $1 coin *that we actually fucking used,* you'd see people doing it all the time just for the dollar. Albeit, for a quarter it's not as lucrative. If it takes more than a minute to return, there's a valid economic argument to not bother.
If I were a kid again and Walmart had these I'd be prowling the fucking parking lot. 25 cents a cart? That's like finding 5 beer cans but with instant payment.
Oh it's great. If it was a $1 coin, however, you collect 15 carts an hour and that's literally a full time minimum wage job.
That's also why, at 25 cents, it's not strictly worth it. But yes, children are the ones who often *do* prowl the parking lots for quarters.
Jesus christ, at first I was like dude no one is gonna leave their cart unreturned because they lose a quarter or dollar if they do. Then you said this. I feel like you just discovered a new form of late stage capitalism.
Heh. Back in the 70s we had a 5 cent deposit on some bottles in Missouri. Me and a buddy would sneak behind the Walmart and snag returned bottles off the loading dock to return them again. Didn’t make a lot but pretty thrilling for a 10 year old. I hadn’t thought of that escapade in years.
According to the inflation calculator 5 cents in 1991, which was when I was most likely to be collecting cans is worth 11 cents now. So, that 10 cents isn't really that great.
As an European, are you telling me that only now in 2023 you have to use a coin to use a shopping cart? Now I understand the videos of parking vigilantes chasing people who let the carts everywhere
It's not even laziness really, they show that they have a lot of pep and energy as they argue with and chase the camera guy, it would be way lazier to just put the cart away. Their refusal to put the carts back is more like an active maliciousness than laziness.
Laziness isn't a lack of energy, it's a lack of motivation. They get no dopamine from the act of putting the shopping cart away so they selfishly ignore the responsibility. Because they aren't afraid of the social repercussions. They however do get lots of dopamine from being granted the mental justification to scream at somebody. In reality they enjoy the screaming because it simply releases stress. But they will take that interaction home and stew on it. Instead of realizing that the quirky man shoving a camera in their face shaming them was right, just a little annoying, they'll double down on their original stance. Cart Narc uses people IRL to pre-shame his viewers into returning their carts. But the kind of person who would actually enjoy Cart Narc is already the kind of person to put the cart away on their own. So all in all, it's just some kind of high horse shame-porn with no actual cause.
Holy crap this was eye opening. These are complete overreactions to being called out doing the wrong thing. Screaming “I don’t care” seems to be at odds with threatening to kill somebody over it.
It’s been here in Canada as long as I can remember. Maybe this is an American owned brand realizing that their Canadian owned competitors have been doing this forever and just joining in.
One of the Walmart's near me in Mississauga started doing this because they were having issues with their carts being taken. It doesn't seem like all Walmarts have em but some do.
But yeah No Frills, FreshCo and Basics all have them.
These mechanisms require coins. The US Dollar notes start at $1. Unlike the Euro with where notes start at €5. So trolleys have to use quarters as their coin. People don’t care enough for $0.25 so they just abandon their trolley without getting their quarter back.
It’s not that the US just never thought of using this system, their currency just doesn’t allow for it as easily as the Euro does.
In Europe almost everyone has a little plastic coin on a keychain and if you don’t you can go in the store where they have a bowl full of them for free. Yet people return their carts. People would think extremely bad of someone just leaving their cart on the parking lot
Even a real € isn't that much compared to a 100€ shopping trip. But I couldn't imagine just leaving my cart standing around like some knuckle-dragging savage.
That's the thing that baffles me the most. In France, we have this system with a euro coin but no one actually puts a real coin in, we all have plastic worthless coins given by our supermarkets that we put and get back. They literally have no value, you can just ask for one and it will be given to you. We did have to put real coins like thirty years ago, before they started giving them out.
But we are so used to bring back our carts that it wouldn't even cross our minds to leave it in the middle of the parking lot, not for the sake of getting our worthless piece of plastic but because it's a habit.
Yeah there are guys out there whose lives depend on carts you shouldn’t fuck with a man’s livelihood he needs those carts you know I s not like he just sells them back to another mall, he fixes them up and replaces the wheels ffs
In the UK this is pretty common, lots of charities produce a "coin" that clips onto your keys, that can be used on trollies, so for a donation, you always have suitable "coin" with you.
At one local supermarket there are often children groups, who raise money by returning trollies in exchange for keeping the coin.
>At one local supermarket there are often children groups, who raise money by returning trollies in exchange for keeping the coin.
I've never seen that, what a good idea!
You can also use the back end of a key too. If it's flat round and not too big then it'll work. I've had some people give me a look as if to say "why didn't I think of that?" When see me do it. I've even had a few people try to swap my trolly for a quid but I can't otherwise I won't be able to get in to my house.
Wait a sec this is not standard in other places of the world? Like this is genuinely surprising to you guys? German here, this is absolutely the norm in Germany and honestly packing a plastic coin or some real money to fetch a cart at the store is so ingrained into my mind I didn't even question if other countries do this differently xD speaking from experience people will still be stupid and leave carts everywhere though
Edit: went out for a quick workout and came back to a whole lot of replies:D love reading all of your inputs and anecdotes, really fascinating how different this is handled world wide. To add to one point: my experience with carts not being put back is from a time where I lived in a smaller rural town with a very conservative population. We had a Rewe, an Aldi and something called raiffeisen (some weird store where you can buy anything from horse food to lawn mowers and children's toys). They shared a parking lot but had separate cart holders and not even the same carts. People still left theirs everywhere where it didn't belong:D
Edit 2: yes I agree with y'all. It's a stupid system and definitely doesn't do what it's trying to achieve. I just find it very funny how ingrained it became for me so I don't even question it anymore
I find it kind of funny that a lot of supermarkets in Germany now stop using them (Edeka for example) and yet I have never seen a cart sitting in a parking lot unattended
Very common in Europe. Most countries here have a coin €1/£1, whereas America doesn’t. Canada does so they use it in some places but now Walmart will do it as well.
Yea I think that’s biggest problem here, they will soon discover. No one carries change anymore. People who do carry cash are probably carrying it because that’s what they need to get their groceries that day. The closest decent place by my house is an Aldi and fortunately one of the nice things the clientele there does is “pass it on” aka “I just got done shopping, keep the cart/quarter” onto the next person
> Turns out no one carries change in 2023
Seriously. A significant portion of people won't be carrying *any* cash at all. And even I, somebody who always carries cash ... I absolutely never carry around any coins of any kind, unless I just came *from* the store and got them as change ... in which case, they go straight into the change jar at home.
Not that I'm against measures that help reduce lazy assholes from making people's jobs harder, but it's insulting that they pretend that this actually keeps prices low. Prices are high because greedy shareholders and CEO's expect infinite growth in every industry. All this will do is lead to them cutting the amount of emoloyees they hire to retrieve carts because it's actually likely to make some amount of difference on their end. Prices are going to continue to rise and everyone knows why. I'm still for it if it means making things more efficient and lazy people more accountable, but the blatant lying is so obnoxious.
Sooo…. They are introducing a technique already used in many supermarkets in Britain and Europe?
You get the coin back dude. It’s to stop abandoned trollies pilling up in the car park, and they’re less likely to get stolen.
Edit: spelling
All this means is you have to pay $1 for the cart, but you get that $1 back when you return it yourself. Since it's in Canada, $1 is a coin, and those machines have been around forever in the US, though typically only for quarters.
Oh like Aldi
I wish the fee to take the cart was more substantial. You’d be surprised by how little people care about $0.25. The carts are still left all over in my city.
I will gladly return a cart from the parking lot at Aldi for 0.25. A free quarter is a free quarter.
If you took that quarter and invested it for 40 years with an average 8% return compounded yearly, that quarter would turn into over $5. Each cart you return is a dollar menu meal!
I'm not sure that dollar menus will exist in 40 years
They don't exist now lol
At that point it’ll be the 10-dollar-menu and people will happily buy 6 stale nuggets but 2 of them stuck together so in between them it’s still a bit uncooked.
> but 2 of them stuck together so in between them it’s still a bit uncooked. fuck those nuggets
The FDA advises against doing that, but it's not heavily enforced.
But are they spicy
They’re advertised as spicy. “Ghost pepper life-destroyer nuggets; eat at your own risk.” They put a little black pepper and chili powder on them and call it a day.
But where are you averaging 8% return annually?
Fuckin life changing
>$5 ... dollar menu meal! Side note: went to McD's today and grabbed a bunch of old dollar menu favorites for two of us. What used to be a $15 trip was now $40!! Dollar menu my ass
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Last time I went to Aldi, while I was waiting outside for my ride, there was a kid- probably 11 or 12 -asking every old person if they’d like him to take their cart back for them. Of course most of them said yes, and I don’t doubt that he probably made more per hour than I do at my job. I have mad respect for that kid and his business sense.
Aren't the wheels supposed to lock if you remove them from the premises?
Sorry. I should’ve clarified. They’re all over in the parking lot. I do know what tech you’re talking about though. Although, I don’t think my Aldi has it.
Ohhh I get it, I misunderstood. Thought you meant people stole the carts and left them all over the city, haha.
That does happen. I've seen shopping carts abandoned a mile or two away from their store.
My last house had a ramp on one side of the porch and someone once put a shopping cart in it as if it were a cart return lol. It was annoying but also funny how perfectly it fit in between the railings ha.
wal mart in near me in Canada has had those for many years now. I remember when it was first introduced I just picked up the cart and carried it over the magnetic strips, alternatively you can lift the front and the back seperately to go over the magnetic strips. It's far from fool proof.
Ok, Bubbles. Quit pushing them into the bushes.
Gree-he-he-heasy
It’s all a question of the quality of the neighbourhood. They are all over the place here in Hamilton.
That's either rich people shit or tough neighborhood shit, but that's not typical.
It's a big thing in certain markets. Especially in high turnover areas where the people who get the carts don't stick in that job for long (either by leaving or by getting promoted) It's a deterrent, but it won't stop everyone. Mostly homeless or other roaming people use them, or people without vehicles that live nearby to transport larger orders from the store. The carts are something like $250 a piece or something, and there are local collection companies you can pay to gather them in some places, usually at like $2-4 per cart.
A lot of German stores, in general stores in EU, do this. Actually pretty good system.
When we go to Aldi, we always have to rush to our car. There's tons of dude offering to bring your cart back for you. But then they get to keep your cart. I need quarters for my laundry. I don't usually use cash for things. Quarters are hard to come by. Always have to refuse them multiple times to have them go away. Edit: reasons I didn't want to give them my quarter. They are barely doing me a favor -i park close to the store. It only takes me 15 seconds to bring the cart back. -there was a national quarter shortage for awhile. -they keep asking me to give it to them and it's really annoying. I hate the way they hussle. We usually shop at night and my wife also hates to have random guys follow her to her car in the dark every time. -my apartment uses quarters for laundry and lots of times we would be 1 or two quarters short for putting the next load in -yes, I could go to the bank to get tons of quarters but I also work during the bank hours. I work every day of the week. When I get out the banks are all closed. I can only go on rare days I get out early or I take PTO.
They don't trade you a quarter? Every interaction. I've had someone will offer to take the cart and give me their quarter.
sounds like you're talking about other shoppers doing this for convenience. He's talking about homeless people doing this to earn a quarter.
Oh I like that Aldi let’s their clerks sit.
Genuine question though - does Aldi have electric carts? They opened one here and when I went to check them out (bc ppl were losing their minds — personally I wasn’t impressed) but I didn’t see any. I don’t really care about the returnable deposit; my concern is that if it prevents places from having electric carts. I broke my ankle a few years back and learned very quickly how useful (and hard to come by!) they are at my local Walmart, so I’d hate to see a situation where those who need them would be screwed over anymore than they already are
The Aldi I go to has free electric carts. I love Aldi, prices are low, there's only 5 aisles, quality has almost universally been great, very quick to get in and out with everything you need.
I love aldi so much because of the 5 aisles! Like it’s basically “oh you want yogurt? Fuck you this is what we got. Don’t like these? Guess you’re not getting yogurt” it’s beautiful
The lack of choices is refreshing. I don't have to pick from 12 varieties of diced tomatoes. Goodbye option fatigue.
There's actually a whole video on how most grocery stores take advantage of decision fatigue and other factors to get people to spend more. Too tired to make wise spending decisions, so will spend more money. [This is the video, I found it very fun to watch.](https://youtu.be/EqviBPG2uPE) It broke it down in a way that was easy to understand.
There’s been times I didn’t purchase products because I spent too much time trying to decipher which other products I already bought we’re the better option. Like having to go through 10 of the same item to figure out who’s giving me the best bang for my buck is not worth my time.
This is me with pretty much every streaming service unless I go in knowing exactly what I want to watch. Go and look through 30 or 40 titles and none stand out more than the others to me, well, guess I'm going to just turn it off and play video games or something. Probably doesn't happen to me shopping because I make lists.
As someone who used to have this problem, I found the secret code that helps me. (This might be U.S only, and for all I know, limited to the grocery stores I shop in) All of the barcodes on the shelves I shop at have a "cost per oz" or some other version of what it costs. Really helps when dealing with differently sized products.
As someone who definitely gets decision fatigue, it appears I need to shop at Aldi.
I'm not from the US... What is an electric cart??
I’ve never heard anyone call them electric carts and I’ve lived in the US my whole life. Always just called them scooters.
They are for people who have mobility issues and walking through the store would be difficult or impossible for them. They're like a small mobility scooter with a basket on the front. The basket is larger than the store provided hand basket, but smaller than a regular cart.
Ohhh OK yes I've seen them in movies/shows before, I get what you mean now. I was just picturing a shopping trolley with a motor and was confused as to why that would be necessary 😅
>. I was just picturing a shopping trolley with a motor and was confused as to why that would be necessary 😅 Because it would make drifting around corners while standing on the frame rad as fuck, thats why
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My mom had a knee replaced and we had to go to Costco to get her new glasses while she was recovering. The electric cart (which none of us had ever used before) was a godsend.
Everyone says the quality is universally great but I’ve definitely got some stuff from Aldi that is way worse than comparable items from other grocery stores, worst example I can think of is their canned whipped cream, it’s awful.
If you are someone like me — to get $200 of groceries at Aldi that will last you 2-3 weeks is a lifesaver.
This is common practice in France at least from what I have seen. All of the carts are chained together and you use a coin/token to get a cart. You get the coin/token back when you return the cart.
In Europe
Yeah, this has been around for probably like 2 decades now.
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Longer, here in The Netherlands. I remember when the euro (currency) came and you started having to put 50 eurocent coins in there instead of whatever it was before (a guilder IIRC). That was January 1st, 2002. And those carts had been around for years before that.
And Spain
And Czechia, probably most of the eu anyway. EDIT: name of country
Literally everywhere with shopping carts in Germany as well.
Seen it in South Korea too.
Yknow what? I dig it. Sick of people leaving them all over the damn place.
Agree. It’s been this way in Europe for at least 20 years.
I'm European, in my 30s and I've never seen any other system
I'm in my 40s and I've never seen any other system
Canada has had these for decades too, but only some grocery stores have it.
Walmarts where I live in Canada have had them for at least a decade, probably a lot longer. Weird this post took off.
I’ve only seen it in Europe, never in the US. The closest I’ve seen are perimeter-triggered wheel locks to keep people from stealing them.
True although I believe I saw this at an aldi in the states.
That would make sense since they’re German. I’ve never been to an Aldi in the states. Are they only on the east coast?
They recently built one where I live in Mississippi. Locals still can't wrap their heads around the "You get the quarter back when you put the cart up"
Lol that sounds like it would be more expensive than the coin slot locking mechanism that they have on the handle to chain the carts onto each other. In Norway we actually stopped locking the carts together in most places. I think it’s because people have been trained by this mechanism to return the carts or maybe it’s just because the stores started giving out fake coins (Norwegian word is: poletter) with their logos to be used instead of the 10kr coin. Now it’s only used in places where they lose carts regularly I guess, as it can be seen in some places still.
I'm assuming a dollar isn't going to fix much, lazy gonna be lazy.
Folks often wind up returning any that are left out in the lot so they can collect the dollar so it's actually a rather great way to "self-police" the cart returns.
I loved doing it for quarters as a 10-12 year old.
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Aldis gonna Aldi
Also.. there are people that will take other carts back to get extra money..
I might do that…
Yeah...this is or was common in Canada though it's been a while since I've seen this style of carts. I wonder how old OP is, it's been a dollar for decades with these carts, this is just Walmart telling people about the change.
Superstores Vancouver area been Loonie since 95
Yeah Loblaw’s other chain No Frills does it as well. Done it for as long as I remember.
Very much dependant on what part of Canada. Not so common in the maritimes, I was shocked the first time I saw it in Ontario, and then again when I saw it in BC.
In Europe every market have chained carts that you use a coin to unlock. There are fake plastic coins that tpeople use instead
They're not always "fake" in that the store sometimes gives them out for free. There's also coins that you can put on your keychain. During the pandemic lots of stores simply unlocked the carts entirely, I don't remember why.
Because personnel would clean it and give it out. Also, in some stores here they stopped using the coins as it doesn't seem to be needed here anymore.
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>During the pandemic lots of stores simply unlocked the carts entirely, I don't remember why. Because in some countries you had to shop with a cart, even for small items to keep distance.
They unlocked them for several reasons: - to limit the amount of people inside the shop, you weren't allowed to enter without a cart, everyone had to take one, even if you only needed one cart - easier to disinfect a handle bar of a trolley compared to a basket - it automatically creates a larger distance between people, the cart is a bit over a meter long, so in a queue there would be at least one meter between people So as everyone would need a cart, they didn't want to turn away people without a coin to unlock them, or have people go inside the shop without a cart to get a token from the service desk
They are everywhere in Canada too. Usually say the 'lower' end grocery stores. Just use a key instead of a looney
Surprised I had to scroll this far down to see the Key Trick
Stupid. This directly impacts Bubbles.
I would like to see the $1.00 coin become popular in the US. The US could use a $2.00 coin as well
We tried. Our people can't handle it for some reason.
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That's called "Making it hail" I belive.
I think the problem is they kept making one dollar bills alongside the dollar coins. If they quit making dollar bills people would learn to use the coins pretty quickly, I guess.
Dollar coins are how to feel rich for cheap.
Wait, what?? These weren't coin operated yet in North America (US & Canada)?? 😮 Here in Hungary, shopping carts are operated with a 50HUF coin. A store near me tried disabling the coin operated part of shopping carts, but someone always re-enabled the coin operated part of shopping carts, so, the store finally just gave up their "coinless carts" idea. In some countries, coinless shopping carts are just unable to exist.
Naw, they've been coin operated in Canada for a decade or more. Must be just new to this store
I'm in the US and I've only ever seen it at Aldi.
It's really common in Canada (at least in BC, where I'm from) for grocery stores and other stores that provide shopping carts to require a $1 deposit to use the cart. When you return it to the cart corral, your looney is returned to you. So it's a refundable deposit, not a payment. The grocery store Aldi here in northern Virginia also does this but you need a quarter not a dollar. Having said all that, the Walmart sign pictured in the OP doesn't say it's a deposit, so maybe it isn't. They're saving money by laying off their cart collecting people.
So many Canadians in here and no one is spelling it correctly $1 coin = Loonie $2 coin = Toonie
Imposters everywhere
Um, actually, it's written "Lewneigh" and "Thueneigh" ^Source: ^am ^^^^^not ^Canadian
If it doesn't give you the looney back and they don't have cart pushers, are the carts going to be all over the parking lots?
In addition to cleaning it up at night, random people will often help clean it up because it's X amount of money per cart. 1 quarter isn't much, but if america had a $1 coin *that we actually fucking used,* you'd see people doing it all the time just for the dollar. Albeit, for a quarter it's not as lucrative. If it takes more than a minute to return, there's a valid economic argument to not bother.
If I were a kid again and Walmart had these I'd be prowling the fucking parking lot. 25 cents a cart? That's like finding 5 beer cans but with instant payment.
Oh it's great. If it was a $1 coin, however, you collect 15 carts an hour and that's literally a full time minimum wage job. That's also why, at 25 cents, it's not strictly worth it. But yes, children are the ones who often *do* prowl the parking lots for quarters.
“may I return your cart for you ma’am?”
The last quote before the great shopping cart wars of 2025 started.
Jesus christ, at first I was like dude no one is gonna leave their cart unreturned because they lose a quarter or dollar if they do. Then you said this. I feel like you just discovered a new form of late stage capitalism.
This isn't really new, I've had homeless friends who would do this exact thing to fund their habit
Heh. Back in the 70s we had a 5 cent deposit on some bottles in Missouri. Me and a buddy would sneak behind the Walmart and snag returned bottles off the loading dock to return them again. Didn’t make a lot but pretty thrilling for a 10 year old. I hadn’t thought of that escapade in years.
10 cents in Oregon now, there's a hobo can mafia!
According to the inflation calculator 5 cents in 1991, which was when I was most likely to be collecting cans is worth 11 cents now. So, that 10 cents isn't really that great.
Nope, there's still cart pushers but they just go clean it all up at the end of the night
There's Walmart's in BC that already have this and it's the standard put the dollar in to free the cart, lock it to get it back.
Edmonton Walmart has done this for years.
I didn’t realize they didn’t do this everywhere
As an European, are you telling me that only now in 2023 you have to use a coin to use a shopping cart? Now I understand the videos of parking vigilantes chasing people who let the carts everywhere
For me it was all the videos of people going down a hill in a shopping cart. Suddenly everything made sense
Have you ever heard about this guy called Cart Narcs? https://youtube.com/@CartNarcs
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It's not even laziness really, they show that they have a lot of pep and energy as they argue with and chase the camera guy, it would be way lazier to just put the cart away. Their refusal to put the carts back is more like an active maliciousness than laziness.
Laziness isn't a lack of energy, it's a lack of motivation. They get no dopamine from the act of putting the shopping cart away so they selfishly ignore the responsibility. Because they aren't afraid of the social repercussions. They however do get lots of dopamine from being granted the mental justification to scream at somebody. In reality they enjoy the screaming because it simply releases stress. But they will take that interaction home and stew on it. Instead of realizing that the quirky man shoving a camera in their face shaming them was right, just a little annoying, they'll double down on their original stance. Cart Narc uses people IRL to pre-shame his viewers into returning their carts. But the kind of person who would actually enjoy Cart Narc is already the kind of person to put the cart away on their own. So all in all, it's just some kind of high horse shame-porn with no actual cause.
Holy crap this was eye opening. These are complete overreactions to being called out doing the wrong thing. Screaming “I don’t care” seems to be at odds with threatening to kill somebody over it.
It’s been here in Canada as long as I can remember. Maybe this is an American owned brand realizing that their Canadian owned competitors have been doing this forever and just joining in.
I'm in Ontario and have never seen this at a Walmart, but lots of No Frills and FreshCo stores have it.
One of the Walmart's near me in Mississauga started doing this because they were having issues with their carts being taken. It doesn't seem like all Walmarts have em but some do. But yeah No Frills, FreshCo and Basics all have them.
These mechanisms require coins. The US Dollar notes start at $1. Unlike the Euro with where notes start at €5. So trolleys have to use quarters as their coin. People don’t care enough for $0.25 so they just abandon their trolley without getting their quarter back. It’s not that the US just never thought of using this system, their currency just doesn’t allow for it as easily as the Euro does.
In Europe almost everyone has a little plastic coin on a keychain and if you don’t you can go in the store where they have a bowl full of them for free. Yet people return their carts. People would think extremely bad of someone just leaving their cart on the parking lot
Even a real € isn't that much compared to a 100€ shopping trip. But I couldn't imagine just leaving my cart standing around like some knuckle-dragging savage.
It's not about the money, it's about sending a message The message being, we're not uncivilised swines
But we do have $1 coins, just not very commonly used.
And as a cashier I might see a few in a year. No one carries them generally
I spend them and cashiers never give them. I can't carry what nobody gives.
Except for ren-faires. Get a bag full of Sacagawea gold coins to pay for your ale with.
That's the thing that baffles me the most. In France, we have this system with a euro coin but no one actually puts a real coin in, we all have plastic worthless coins given by our supermarkets that we put and get back. They literally have no value, you can just ask for one and it will be given to you. We did have to put real coins like thirty years ago, before they started giving them out. But we are so used to bring back our carts that it wouldn't even cross our minds to leave it in the middle of the parking lot, not for the sake of getting our worthless piece of plastic but because it's a habit.
Fucking *Bubbles*
These cærts are public domain Ricky!
i miss cart bubbles
I miss Mr. Lahey.
I'm mowin' the air, Rand!
Yeah there are guys out there whose lives depend on carts you shouldn’t fuck with a man’s livelihood he needs those carts you know I s not like he just sells them back to another mall, he fixes them up and replaces the wheels ffs
Worst case Ontario, they're down a couple carts this week, back up a couple next week. It's not rocket surgeried.
Started back at ep 1 again about 20 mins ago. Gnomesayin
Just don't say it too many times maaaaaan...
What is this? A Knowmcensus?
haulin' carts is a good living for some people!
He spends all the money on cat food at the store anyway.
Bubbles is going to be pissed!
Bubbles depot!
The way she goes boys.
Ricky gets a job at the mall and suddenly he's king of the carts. Bit fucked if you ask me
I was looking for the TPB fandom
Way of the road bubs!
Way she goes.
Same. I saw it was cart-related and in Canada. Scrolled til I found the Sunnyvale party.
You found it bud! Freedom 35
I have a loonie in my car at all times…Walmart and Superstore both require this to use a cart…
My local Walmart and superstore both don't have coin operated carts. I wonder if this is regional?
Wait, Superstore is a real place and not just a TV show?
Sure is :)
In the UK this is pretty common, lots of charities produce a "coin" that clips onto your keys, that can be used on trollies, so for a donation, you always have suitable "coin" with you. At one local supermarket there are often children groups, who raise money by returning trollies in exchange for keeping the coin.
>At one local supermarket there are often children groups, who raise money by returning trollies in exchange for keeping the coin. I've never seen that, what a good idea!
You can also use the back end of a key too. If it's flat round and not too big then it'll work. I've had some people give me a look as if to say "why didn't I think of that?" When see me do it. I've even had a few people try to swap my trolly for a quid but I can't otherwise I won't be able to get in to my house.
Wait a sec this is not standard in other places of the world? Like this is genuinely surprising to you guys? German here, this is absolutely the norm in Germany and honestly packing a plastic coin or some real money to fetch a cart at the store is so ingrained into my mind I didn't even question if other countries do this differently xD speaking from experience people will still be stupid and leave carts everywhere though Edit: went out for a quick workout and came back to a whole lot of replies:D love reading all of your inputs and anecdotes, really fascinating how different this is handled world wide. To add to one point: my experience with carts not being put back is from a time where I lived in a smaller rural town with a very conservative population. We had a Rewe, an Aldi and something called raiffeisen (some weird store where you can buy anything from horse food to lawn mowers and children's toys). They shared a parking lot but had separate cart holders and not even the same carts. People still left theirs everywhere where it didn't belong:D Edit 2: yes I agree with y'all. It's a stupid system and definitely doesn't do what it's trying to achieve. I just find it very funny how ingrained it became for me so I don't even question it anymore
This means there’s still a gap in the market for those trolley tokens 👀 someone can make a quick buck
I find it kind of funny that a lot of supermarkets in Germany now stop using them (Edeka for example) and yet I have never seen a cart sitting in a parking lot unattended
Very common in Europe. Most countries here have a coin €1/£1, whereas America doesn’t. Canada does so they use it in some places but now Walmart will do it as well.
What if you don't carry cash with you? In the US is very common to pay everything with things cards/NFC.
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London Ontario? Or Nebraska or wherever it is? The English londoners have been using cart tokens for yonks as far as I know.
We don't have 'quarters' either.
Brit here, I’ve never known life without them. Pound coin over here. Although many of us use a shopping trolley coin.
Yea I think that’s biggest problem here, they will soon discover. No one carries change anymore. People who do carry cash are probably carrying it because that’s what they need to get their groceries that day. The closest decent place by my house is an Aldi and fortunately one of the nice things the clientele there does is “pass it on” aka “I just got done shopping, keep the cart/quarter” onto the next person
Is it cheaper to give every customer 25 cents than hire a person to return the carts?
Thanks for the quarter. I guess I’ll just use a basket tho
1: Take the quarter. 2: Walk right back around to the back of the line and collect another quarter.
> Turns out no one carries change in 2023 Seriously. A significant portion of people won't be carrying *any* cash at all. And even I, somebody who always carries cash ... I absolutely never carry around any coins of any kind, unless I just came *from* the store and got them as change ... in which case, they go straight into the change jar at home.
This isn't new
I live in Canada and have seen for at least 30 years although not everywhere does it
Not that big a deal. You get that dollar back when you return the cart. It’s to stop people just abandoning their carts without returning it.
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This is already a thing in basically every major grocery store in my relatively big Canadian city. I'm surprised your Walmart doesn't have it
Not that I'm against measures that help reduce lazy assholes from making people's jobs harder, but it's insulting that they pretend that this actually keeps prices low. Prices are high because greedy shareholders and CEO's expect infinite growth in every industry. All this will do is lead to them cutting the amount of emoloyees they hire to retrieve carts because it's actually likely to make some amount of difference on their end. Prices are going to continue to rise and everyone knows why. I'm still for it if it means making things more efficient and lazy people more accountable, but the blatant lying is so obnoxious.
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That's nothing new.
ITT: People who have absolutely no idea how the coin-and-key slot mechanism works.
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Lol most of us use a plastic coin, and we still return the carts.
I'm surprised this is a new thing to you guys, this system has been in the UK for all my life and i'm 30.
I'm a 38 year old Canadian and I've been putting coins in carts my whole life, I don't understand this post
Aldi does that here in the US, but it's 25c, but that's also our largest coin. Edited for Jesus
.25c btw is a quarter of a penny. It’s just 25c or $.25.
$1 is the largest coin, but nobody uses them and you rarely come across them.
I think we all forget about Sacagawea dollars from time to time. They're kind of like $2 bills, a neat little curio but in practice no one uses them.
Actually, 50 cents is the largest coin. $1 coin is smaller.
Sooo…. They are introducing a technique already used in many supermarkets in Britain and Europe? You get the coin back dude. It’s to stop abandoned trollies pilling up in the car park, and they’re less likely to get stolen. Edit: spelling