Every year, 3 million shopping carts are replaced, with most leaving a retailer’s parking lot never to return. Another 4 million will be stolen before their 3rd year of service. Are your shopping carts an ever-growing blight within your organization? Are the days of a cart for every customer a distant memory, lost in the chaos of rusty baskets and squeaky wheels? Do you worry about the mounting maintenance and replacement costs, not to mention what it looks like to your customers and community seeing such disrepair? Don’t despair! For just dollars per day, you can change the life of a shopping cart. Give your organization the gift that keeps on giving.
Install Gatekeeper Systems, CartControl® system! Say goodbye to daily cart rescue missions and costly municipal fines – save time, money, and hassle with an investment that pays you back. Shopping carts should be making you money, not costing you money. Stores often experience a full, multi-level return on investment within a year of installing a CartControl®system:
Increased Sales
Many People take grabbing a cart for granted and do not consider all it means to both the retailer and the customer. The sales it enables, the experience it delivers, what it says about the brand. The shopping cart is commonly the most neglected piece of store equipment, yet it is often the longest single point of interaction between the customer and a store’s brand. Missing carts during peak hours force customers to carry merchandise in smaller hand baskets or convenience carts, reducing the amount of merchandise that can be purchased. Having clean, working, and available carts for the customer drives a positive shopper experience, which is directly related to how the customer interacts and spends money with your brand.
In the end, it is far less expensive in dollars and as a brand to take care of your cart fleet. Cart retrieval, maintenance, replacement, and city ordinances can routinely cost a store $15,000 per year. Learn more about how cart containment can decrease your store’s maintenance and retrieval costs by 90%, achieving a return of investment of less than one year.
Cart Maintenance Costs
Carts live a hard life full of difficult work and abuse. Once taken off property, carts are likely to get damaged from improper use and exposure – costing retail stores thousands each year in shopping cart maintenance expenses. Carts that never leave the store’s perimeter aren’t exposed to harsh elements and abuse which prolongs their useful life. Investing in Gatekeeper’s CartControl® solution with locking wheels is a smart decision for retailers to make, as it helps to both reduce maintenance costs and protects the brand image by preventing a store’s carts from littering the local community.
Cart Retrieval Costs
When stores have Gatekeeper CartControl®, they remain in the store’s perimeter until an employee retrieves them, meaning fewer carts will find their way out of the premises and onto public streets and sidewalks. This not only reduces retrieval costs for the retailer, but also promotes a better brand image with the community by eliminating unsightly images of abandoned carts. Retrieval companies are a rip-off! They profit at your expense, charging stores thousands a year to return carts. In 2009 Dave Reid, executive vice president of the California Shopping Cart Retrieval Corporation, estimated that he retrieved 65,000 carts in one city, charging from $20 per load to as much as $4 a cart[i]. The savings that result from implementing Gatekeeper’s CartControl® solution is significant, as it is no longer necessary to pay for staff or 3rd party companies to retrieve lost carts.
Cart Replacement Costs
Despite the retail community’s best efforts, many carts that get taken off property never make it back. Fleet attrition for an average store is two (2) carts a week, either lost, damaged, or stolen. Losing two (2) carts a week with 52 weeks a year at $155 per cart, the total cost for a store is $16,120 a year – making CartControl® a cost-effective solution for any retailer.
Municipal fines
A majority of US states have cities with abandoned cart ordinances ranging from fines for abandoned carts, expensive mandatory 3rd party retrieval services, to mandatory cart containment systems. Cities have turned to heavy handed retrieval fees for carts collected by municipal services with retrieval fees costing as much as $25 per cart, often in addition to any fines levied by a city. Non-claimed carts are auctioned off or recycled. CartControl® is an effective way for retailers to keep their communities safe and clean while saving money on potential fines.
The Harsh Reality
Despite shopping cart replacement and repair costs being at an all-time high, the demand for shopping carts has increased dramatically and manufacturers are struggling to keep up. Wanzl, America’s leading manufacturer of shopping carts, is facing a 7-month backlog on orders. The situation is so dire that even customers who wish to replace their existing carts have found it difficult to do so due to supply chain issues leading to a nationwide shortage. Fortunately, Gatekeeper CartControl® addresses this challenge with its innovative and comprehensive solution. CartControl® ensures customers can continue to enjoy a seamless shopping experience with access to well-stocked shopping carts when they need them.
Visit protectthecarts.org to see firsthand why we so urgently need your help and begin the process today!
About Gatekeeper
Gatekeeper Systems’ expanded product suite of intelligent cart solutions offers solutions for EVERY retailer’s needs to minimize merchandise loss, reduce asset and labor expenditures.
Gatekeeper’s loss prevention and cart containment solutions utilize patented locking technology to put an end to cart-based shoplifting, shopping cart loss, and uninformed decision-making. Cart management solutions increase safety and reduce labor costs by maximizing productivity while simultaneously resulting in a positive store image.
Intelligent pushout theft prevention solutions stop thieves and their cart full of unpaid merchandise from leaving the store. Customizable technology allows retailers to defend their entire store or just a high loss department based on the store’s unique layout.
[i] Deegan, J. (2007, June 6). San Diego stores and their lost shopping carts – $2 a cart to get them back San Diego Reader. https://www.sandiegoreader.com/news/2007/jun/06/cart-theft-posse/
