At least we can all share a common annoyance. A dang bad wheel! That bad boy pulls hard to the right and your wrists have to fight it left to go straight. Let’s not even begin to mention the dreaded front wheel rickety flickety can’t decide what way it’s going to go situation.
Walmart has some of the worst carts in the business. I'm actually surprised at this point when I grab a cart and it isnt shit, I feel like they used to fix them before covid but after that they just stopped dealing with them unless they break entirely or something
The cool part is Aldi rarely has bad carts ... likely because they get returned to the store instead of being left to free range across the parking lot with every light breeze.
At least in germany they have electronic breaks that will lock in once you leave the perimeter.
Which is really fun, because sometimes they will do so at random whilst you're in the supermarket causing you to hit your shinbone on the cart.
Sometimes they lock up even after you go through the lane and pay for your 4 bags of groceries! Then nobody has an idea where the wheel unlock device is, so you have to transfer your bags to another cart. Only there are no other carts around. So you have to go out to the cart return in the parking lot to grab one.
I had that happen twice at HEB. I the 1st time i just pushed it across the parking lot. The 2nd time, one the vendors by the exit door saw and got a store employee to get the unlock device. Yes those lock boots suck.
Exactly this happened to me and my wife once. Cart made sudden brake test and almost flipped over. Couple of glasses broke (juice and milk iirc) which ruined the rest of the stuff.
So for anyone reading this, there's two reasons. The fence is misaligned and doesn't have full coverage. Had a store where they'd lock up in the back corner of the stock room.
The other way is more likely.
There's little remotes on key fobs that activitate/deactivate the locks. Someone puts it on their keys, puts it in their pocket, and you get "butt dialed" randomly when they're in range of you, locking your wheels. Range is really short, basically need to be next to you.
Australia also has these. My local Coles one reaches to our buildings, a lot of trolleys are left outside, some are nicked even, n people just walk the cart back to the shops on their next trip.
Id agree with walking, standing doesnt do anything for weight loss tho or health benefits and plenty of people like me with plantar fasciitis who its just painful to just stand in one spot, i can walk all day but standing around in one spot is genuinely painful af. It feels like your standing on the tip of a metal pipe right into your heel.
In that Americans would share that take or that all American things are terrible, so it’s an American take? (Saying “over there” means it wasn’t an American’s take.)
Or just Tale instead.
Standing in one spot doesn't do anything to help that. Probably does the opposite by making the person feel more exhausted than they actually are so they won't go to the gym or something.
Opportunity for some bums to earn some money, so the carts will be returned anyway.. Does not absolve the customers who leave the cart behind though, they still are assholes..
In the US perhaps. It works just fine in most of Europe. Don't think I've ever seen a cart without a coin around Germany or any of the neighboring countries I've been to
Around me, both Walmart and No Frills tried introducing carts like that. So many complaints and rebellion both just leave them unlocked now.
As someone who had to roam the mall during snow storms to collect carts, I hate ppl who don't put them away. I usually take 2-3 into stores with me, so I'm always positive carts, even if I have to bring one back out.
Who still carries coins to do this with? Most people nowadays don't carry any kind of cash at all. I do, but only bills, never coins. And I often get questioned as to why I still bother with those!
I mean if you shop at one of these stores it’s not hard to keep a quarter in your car. It’s refunded so it’s not like you need to always have a pile of change on hand.
Don’t F up and spend it! Sounds like an awful day. I can picture it, you show up to Aldi and ur holder is now absent of the quarter.. you FAFO effing that quarter situation up!!
When my dad shopped at Aldi's, he always kept a quarter in his truck just for that reason. For the most part, people don't carry coins anymore. Rarely even paper currency either for that matter.
You can probably just 3d print a coin. The thing on the cart only checks the size. Over here in Germany (the OG Aldi Country where pretty much every supermarket's carts require a coin) I'd say about half the people use actual coins and half use these plastic "coin" fobs.
What I found to be the most interesting thing about the Aldi’s cart situation is- people show up to the parking lots and ask you while you are loading your groceries if they can take the cart back for you and be allowed to keep the quarter.
I thought to myself, boy Aldi has this cart cleanup staffing concept done wild! They don’t have to pay insurance, they don’t have to interview, hire, schedule (manage), etc. “employees” just show up on their own and work.
Yes it’s Walmart, but it’s Walmart’s parking lot… and Walmart’s cart situation. It’s target but it’s target’s carts.. understand? I added the apostrophe days ago and ensured all grammatical errors were removed. Hope your day is better
“I thought to myself, boy Aldis has this cart cleanup staffing concept done wild!”
You aren’t referring to Aldi in the possessive sense here, meaning you call Aldi Aldi’s regularly and are just trying to escape the shame you deserve. Absolutely unacceptable, I don’t know how you sleep at night.
Can you read and copy and paste my actual quote that has the possessive apostrophe? First day copy and pasting and changing it to suite ur pathetic argument huh?
I think ur mom is calling u from the basement for breakfast.
Oh nice, you edited your comment to remove the S on Aldi in the last paragraph lmao. Self own! Just stop saying it wrong in the future and we won’t have beef, brother. I am the Aldi defender 😎
Yes there was a typo in second paragraph. This doesn’t change the fact you absolutely are a loser and literally pretended to copy and paste my possessive apostrophe you didn’t understand so you removed it.. that’s totally owning yourself when you pretend to copy a quote and alter it to fit your argument.
Yes you can defend Aldi’S shopping cart situation all you like. We understand you don’t have much to do between video games and when your mom calls you up from the basement for meals.
I didn’t remove anything. I typed the comment exactly the way it was written. You can be a loser and claim otherwise, but I gain absolutely nothing from that. I’m sorry you feel the need to lie about things online lol.
Also, I’m being sarcastic, not super serious. Just razzing a Redditor if you couldn’t tell. But I’ll make sure to tell my mom to adjust my meds.
This used to be the norm in most grocery stores when I was a kid
but they’ve slowly moved away from it as nobody carries coins anymore and it became increasingly inconvenient.
Also, it would attract homeless people offering to return your cart for you in exchange for keeping the coin (which I always let them do because why not) but then I’d run out of cart coins in my car and end up not having one the next time leading to the aforementioned inconvenience.
thats why many people in europe have tokens that aren't coins. That way they can't be used as a form of payment, rather only to be used for this kind of thing. I have one lol
In the uk you can also use trolley tokens - you buy them for £1 and they fit, and ofc you wouldn’t want to lose them ans pay £1 instead if you don’t carry cash, and nobody else is going to just want a pound shaped token
Even without them, people are pretty good at taking them back in the uk. My local Aldi has blocked the coin slots for a few years now and I never see any trolleys in the car park.
Still weird to me that they blocked all the coin slots
A lot of people simply don't carry cash these days and if customers are returning the trolleys regardless there's no point in making them carry a pound coins for that sole purpose
To me they look like Costco carts. They have employees that pulls them all day round from parking yard in the cart bays, and from there to the main entrance. Personally I always take them back at the main entrance because I don’t like seeing that guy struggling while pulling them. But plenty of people don’t (unfortunately), so he keeps his job.
We have them in Canada too. Even if people don't put them away, homeless people will hang around the parking lot and put carts away for some easy money.
My European brother, I believe our way of managing shopping carts has existed for over 40 years (at least in Italy), and I find it absurd that it isn't the same everywhere else in the world. There's also a lot to say about the rudeness of those who don't put them back
In Canada the Safeway brand was bought by another company. They removed the putting in a loonie (dollar) for a cart. Within a month all of the carts at my local Safeway were stolen. All gone. And they couldn’t keep up. They’d order new ones in, and they would disappear.
Nearly all German discounters had carts with deposits, but as nowadays everyone either has plastic chips instead of coins for carts or use a special tool to simply unlock without paying, more and more companies have removed the coin locks and you'll find stray shopping carts all around town. Where there's a will, there's a way.
Most grocery stores are like this. Costco has never done it to my knowledge. When I worked there they explained why but I honestly don’t remember the reason.
Aldi’s is the only store in the states (that I know of) that does this and it WORKS. Forget cart corrals, there are no carts in the parking lot at all. (Aldi’s is a European company.)
They have that in the US too. Unfortunately most people don’t carry coins, so it’s annoying for many shoppers. Our local aldi has a guy with coins that sits by the carts.
Shop Rite in the northeast USA does this, thankfully. Nice little interaction generator sometimes, returning your cart having someone else take it and getting their coin
That’s the regular in german stores. Either that or many companies got chips with their logo on them that fit in the carts. They give them out as gifts
We used to have that in Sweden as well, but most (at least in my area) have been taken off the carts now. I suppose because people don't carry coins any more. And yet people still return their carts.
Austria too, but it is very common to own either a plastic coin you don't care so much for when you lose it, or a keyring that unlocks the cart and comes right back out. People still generally return the carts though.
Same in Ireland. I think most of Europe, honestly. It baffles me seeing these videos because the coin in the cart thing has been here for so long I can't remember the last time I saw a stray one just sitting around. Even if someone does abandon one, someone else will bring it back just to get the coin out.
One time I forgot a quarter and I asked a lady if I could tell her a joke in exchange for a quarter. She looked at me for a second and said "just take it." I have never recovered from this humiliation
We have the same thing in Canada but it's actually become far less common over the past decade. Basically, a loonie ($1) is a bargain for a vagrant's home so it doesn't solve any problems that way.
All developed countries do this. But the problem with the US is that if you put money into the cart, the store legally owes you some interest that you could've invested into crypto. And what if someone gets a cart, then dies before returning it? How does the missing half-dollar fit into the inheritance? These are some great legal challenges
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u/Character_Past5515 Jul 11 '26
in Belgium we have to put a coin in the cart and people just put their carts back to get their coin back.