It is Monday morning, 7 a.m., and you start counting the shopping trolleys. To your great frustration, there are again 6 shopping trolleys less than last week. Unfortunately, this is the harsh reality for many shop managers. Theft and loss of shopping trolleys is a major problem, not only for the supermarket which has to spend a lot of money to buy new trolleys, but also for the area around the supermarket where the trolleys are found wandering around and causing damage to means of transport etc.
According to the Food Marketing Institute in Washington, D.C, the annual cost of shopping trolley theft worldwide is 695 million euros (Calgary Herald, 21.09.2021) Despite all efforts by retailers to reduce trolley theft and loss, the problem remains. This summer, a Safeway supermarket in San Francisco announced that they had lost 160 shopping trolleys in one month. This is more than 5 trolleys a day! If your supermarket loses only 3 shopping trolleys a week, it will still cost the shop at least €13,000 a year.
An innovative solution has been developed to prevent shopping trolley theft. Each shopping trolley is fitted with an intelligent wheel and, in consultation with you as the shop manager, it is determined how far around the shop the customers may use the trolleys. An underground cable marks the boundary of the free shopping trolley area. If the cable is laid around the shop’s car park, all customers are free to take the trolley to their cars, but it is impossible to take the trolley home from the car park. The intelligent wheel locks when the shopping trolley goes over the cable. When you pull back towards the supermarket, the intelligent wheel unlocks and the trolley is free to use again. The shopping trolley will not lock abruptly but a strong braking effect is created so that there is no unnecessary wear and tear on the wheel. Smart customers who think they can lift the shopping trolley over the cable will be disappointed, as the special wheel also locks at height, which means the trolley has a locked wheel after it has been lifted over the cable.
Rocateq supplies and installs this innovative solution against theft and loss of shopping trolleys. Your shopping trolleys are secured against theft and you save on the purchase of new ones every year. The people living near the supermarket and the municipality will be grateful that shopping trolleys no longer roam the neighbourhood. In addition, you will always have enough shopping trolleys available for all your customers.
Many may not even know they have a shopping trolley theft problem because most Loss Prevention executives never see financial loss information regarding shopping trolleys. Find out what the real impact of shopping cart loss is and how it affects your sales.
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