Food retailers alone lose more than 2 million shopping carts every year. Whether stolen or blown away by the wind, shopping carts can block empty parking places and intersections as well as ditches and storm drains. Abandoned shopping carts aren’t just unsightly, however; they can even roll downhill and hit property or — worse yet — people, raising liability issues.
Traditional shopping carts also expose their stores to possible fines. A single Walmart location in a small Massachusetts town had to pay more than $20,000 to compensate city employees for rounding up and storing their stray carts. Indeed, CNN estimates that retailers pay tens of millions of dollars every year to replace carts that went missing. My team’s internal research suggests that the average mid-size U.S. retailer shells out $90,000 to $100,000 annually to cover the many expenses associated with shopping carts.
Now there’s a way to make these headaches go away: smart carts.
What are Smart Carts?
Advances in shopping cart technology can help retailers eliminate the expenses that dumb carts incur. TRACARTS does this by adding identification tags that resemble Non-Contact Radio Frequency (NRF) or Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) sensors to your existing fleet of shopping carts.
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That’s right — you don’t even need to buy new carts. Your current shopping carts can be quickly and easily retrofitted into smart carts.
Adding these tags enables individual cart identification and tracking by connecting each cart to a specific shopper, which means you will always know exactly where every single one is without having to search all over town. You will also always know if carts need to be moved to different corrals to ensure an adequate supply for shoppers coming from all directions.
But that’s only the beginning when it comes to smart carts’ benefits.
Smart Carts Encourage Customers to Return Them
Smart carts also improve the customer experience by connecting to a retailer’s existing app that consumers download onto their smartphones, to reward them for returning the cart to a corral when they are done shopping. Retailers can customize these incentives to their specific needs in the form of coupons, exclusive sales or point systems, or they can even be personalized for individuals based on their own shopping habits. This gamification makes your store a fun source of dopamine, which promotes customer loyalty.
During TRACARTS’ three-month pilot program, for instance, shoppers earned points for returning their carts, which translated into discounts on their next purchase. Another result of the pilot program was the addition of 6,000 shoppers to the retailer’s store loyalty program through the system’s identification process. The retailer achieved an impressive 97% retention rate for shopping carts, resulting in monthly savings totaling $30,000.
Smart Carts Ensure Availability, Smooth Functioning
Smart carts ensure a consistent availability of carts. This contrasts with the traditional customer experience, in which empty carts frequently clog up the aisles inside the store or litter the parking lot, where they don’t do arriving customers any good. Since people want to return their smart carts to corrals and receive their rewards, carts become readily available.
What’s more, when shoppers have carts, they can fill them rather than limiting their purchases to what they can carry. For this reason, the retailer in our pilot program observed a boost in customer spending during busy store hours.
Smart carts also allow shoppers to report problems with their carts, enlisting their help in identifying damaged carts and queueing them up for prompt repair. This also maximizes the chances that when a customer pulls a cart out from the corral, it won’t have a sticky or misaligned wheel. The carts will be in good working order and function smoothly.
Smart Carts Improve your Decision-Making
If that isn’t already enough, smart carts facilitate data collection on consumers’ behavior in your store. Despite substantial investments in retail technology, retailers often overlook the wealth of data that can be gleaned from a ubiquitous item like the shopping cart, which virtually every shopper interacts with. When you know how people are spending their time and moving through your displays, you can make better decisions about what merchandise to place where. This data enhances retail productivity.
Don’t underestimate the potential for gathering information from the humble shopping cart. By integrating it into the data grid, retailers can gain valuable insights that unlock numerous opportunities to enhance the overall shopping experience.
Boost Brand Loyalty and Sales
Smart carts not only prevent shopping cart losses and streamline the customer journey; they also provide valuable data to retailers. By leveraging technology, they enable stores to improve operational efficiency, cut costs and connect with customers better. As a result, brand loyalty and sales go up. That’s why smart carts are the future.
Haim Heller, COO of TRACARTS, is a Brooklyn native with a Bachelor of Talmudic Law degree from MYRCB. With 30+ years in commercial print packaging, he excels in managing complex relationships, wholesale partnerships, and logistics. His leadership extends beyond business to philanthropy, notably through Hurricane Sandy rescue efforts and volunteering as Senior Coordinator for AAK, supporting underprivileged adults. His journey embodies academic excellence, professional expertise, and a strong commitment to giving back.
