Shopping cart thievery.

[dragon_wings]

So like any drugstore we have grocery carts for customers with big orders, older customers that can't get around easily, and big items. Well our customers have been STEALING our carts. Two months ago we easily had a dozen and a half. Three weeks ago we had six. And this morning when I came in we had ONE. So all day we had customers whining that we didn't have any carts (they'd been doing this since we started to lose them but not to this extent).
Then we had an old bint come in from a retirement home and bitch and bitch and bitch. She wanted to talk to our manager and the guy helping her was whining too (probably cause he had to do more work carrying her stuff). Well we find our ONE cart and give it to her so she'll shut up but she stops every employee she sees and bitches. Oh and she said she was gonna stop shopping at our store and take her business to the Aid of Rite across the street. And none of the old bints from the retirement home will come back. She had the audacity to say that we (the store) could afford to buy some more carts. When she says that Im sure my face has a clear "WTF" look on it.
I went on break soon after she got the ONE cart and started browsing. And while I was on break my manager comes back to the break room to grab some food as well and we talk about the massive amounts of bitching, primarily from older white women. And I just straight up tell him "Fuck them. I hate 90% of our customers." And all he could do was agree with me. Our customers SUCK.

[ShootMePlease]

Mayhaps you should do what the Mart of Wal does and make the carts lock up if they pass a certain point in your parking lot. Although I suspect the carts aren't stolen as much as the older folks walk them home and don't bring them back. it might behoove you to go by the retirement home and check if any of your carts are there.

[Kristev]

Bus stops. That's where I used to find them when the shopping trolleys would all seem to be missing. People buy boatloads of groceries with a shopping trolley, take them to the bus stop, and board.

Though going by the home would not be a bad move.

[SuperRTL]

I used to have to do a drive through of the surrounding neighborhood every week or so. Found most of them near the bus stop but the low income apartment nearby and the home always had a couple, too.

[flyingember]

I know someone who found and kept a shopping cart

It was miles from the store in an area with no sidewalks for miles.

[Android Kaeli]

I've found Wally World's carts over at my store. Crazy thing? Wally World is across the street over a four lane [two each way] street with a shiney new stop light -- a stop light that was put in place because someone had finally died at the intersection*. And idiot drivers don't seem to take heed of the 30 MPH speed limit, either.






*I don't mean to take death lightly. What I mean is that the interestion where my store is at, at least one of them, had accidents there at least four times every couple of days, some of them blocking up traffic one way and sometimes there would be multiple accidents in a single day. The city I live in seems to take the stance of "no matter how many accidents there are, even if there's a hundred of them in a week, unless someone dies, there will be no action taken.".

[EricKei]

Taking carts off of store property is actually *explicitly* illegal in my state (Confusion 8p)...I've never heard of any places getting hit *that* badly before, tho x_x

[BrenDAnn]

What do you want to bet that the crazy bint was one of the ones that stole the carts to start with? It wouldn't surprise me any. As others have said, sweep the neighborhood to look for carts. You never know where they might be hiding!

[Shalom]

Although I suspect the carts aren't stolen as much as the older folks walk them home and don't bring them back steal them.

Fixed that for you. Really, what's the difference?

What do you want to bet that the crazy bint was one of the ones that stole the carts to start with?

I don't take bets that I'm sure I'm gonna lose.

My [ex-]store started out with six carts. By the time we rented the front half to a nearby grocery for them to put in a satellite location, we were down to three. Those things aren't cheap, either.

[Raveni]

Taking carts off of store property is actually *explicitly* illegal in my state (Confusion 8p)...I've never heard of any places getting hit *that* badly before, tho x_x

When I managed the grocery store where you SAVE a little and bring A LOT of your own bags, we budgeted to replace 100 shopping carts a year. And ours were the kind that locked up when they got too far from the store.

[NateTheChops]

We didn't have any at the Aid of Rite I worked at either. Then we got some with the large metal poles to prevent customers from walking out with them, where they would inevitably disappear.

That lasted about six months, because customers who were not easily flummoxed (I'm going to use that word to death) by the pole would simply lean the cart back and push it out that way.

Oh, of course it was out fault if they never came back.

[MoonCat]

I think I live in the stolen shopping cart capital of the world. They're everywhere, and only one chain of stores makes any effort to keep or retrieve their carts; theirs are the only ones I never see around the neighborhood. I could name about 10 different stores whose carts end up around here, some of the blocks and blocks away from the actual stores. I once saw a cart inside a bus shelter, from a store that closed over 10 years ago. Even the thrift store had to install those long poles on the carts that prevent the carts from being pushed outside the store.

Somebody had a cart on their front lawn with plants growing in it. Yep, they turned it into a giant planter.

The little neighborhood newspaper ran editorials about stolen shopping carts and ran letters from people complaining that the stores weren't collecting them. The guy who hand-delivers these newspapers transports them in....

....a shopping cart.

[Raveni]

Somebody had a cart on their front lawn with plants growing in it. Yep, they turned it into a giant planter.

The little neighborhood newspaper ran editorials about stolen shopping carts and ran letters from people complaining that the stores weren't collecting them.

I'm not going onto private property, dumping plants or whatever onto the ground, then trying to make a getway with a cart with the wheels locked up because the thieves write letters to the newspaper that we aren't collecting the property that they stole.

[DeltaSierra]

The only suggestion I have is to do what they do out here - to *get* the cart you have to pay for it - a quarter used to be the norm, but now its a Loonie and sometimes a Twoonie (CDN $1 and $2 coins.) People are much more likely to return the carts to the corall when they have some money invested in them - you don't get the $ back until you lock the cart to the one in front.

[Stryker One]

Ca-Ching, BOOM!

The only suggestion I have is to do what they do out here - to *get* the cart you have to pay for it - a quarter used to be the norm, but now its a Loonie and sometimes a Twoonie (CDN $1 and $2 coins.) People are much more likely to return the carts to the corall when they have some money invested in them - you don't get the $ back until you lock the cart to the one in front.

That is awesome! 'Course having a little C4 surprise that goes off when the carts cross a perimeter could also cut down on the problem.