|
|
Shopping Cart New Zealand |
 |
|
|
A shopping cart (also
called a buggy or a trolley in British English;
sometimes referred to as a carriage or shopping
carriage in the U.S. region of New England; also
known as a bascart in some regions of the U.S. and
basket in others.) is a cart supplied by a shop,
especially a supermarket, for use by customers
inside the shop for transport of merchandise to the
check-out counter, and, after paying, often also to
the car on the parking lot. Often, customers are
allowed to leave the carts in the parking lot, and
store personnel return the carts to the shop.
As shopping cart losses reach 180 million dollars a
year in the U.S. and more municipalities pass
abandoned shopping cart legislation, shopping cart
containment systems are proving to be a viable cost
effective solution. Shopping carts average $50.00 to
$80.00 apiece depending on quantity and materials
used in their construction. Shopping carts are
frequently removed from store premises by patrons
without the knowledge or permission of the shopping
cart’s owner which is typically a retail food store.
These wayward shopping carts are more likely to
never be returned by the patron and have to be
recovered by paid contracted shopping cart retrieval
companies. Shopping carts that are not promptly
removed from public and private property other than
a retail store property may be confiscated as
provided by local or other statutes and held for
redemption by municipalities. Some states however do
not recognize carts left on private property as
abandoned even though the property may not be that
of the retailer, further hampering retrieval
efforts. Often the municipalities that perform their
own shopping cart confiscation roundups and storage
thereof do not always promptly or ever contact the
respective owners of the seized cart inventories
preventing the timely return of the much needed
shopping carts. To further exacerbate this
situation, some shopping cart retrieval service
providers have been known to retrieve shopping carts
from their own client retailer’s property and then
charge the same retailer for their own on premises
carts as if they were actually off premises and
missing.
Some missing shopping carts never make it back to
their original owners due to theft and resale to
other retailers with or without the knowledge of the
purchasing party. Smaller independent retailers as
an almost accepted way of conducting business resort
to scavenging shopping cart inventories from
surrounding areas and from each other without regard
to who might own the shopping carts due to the costs
associated with maintaining their own fleets.
Larger retailers that maintain more than one
operation in relatively close proximity often lose
and gain inventories between themselves creating
imbalances of deployable shopping cart inventories.
This wreaks havoc on the industry’s ability to
maintain any resemblance of control, custody and
maintenance of their shopping carts often forcing
retailers to purchase carts in a panic during
periods of depleted inventories only to later be
overwhelmed with excess inventories when the missing
carts arrive at any point in time thereafter.
Typically the non-warehouse retail store operates on
a 1% average profit margin. Many chains have elected
to close high loss stores just because of runaway
shrinkage from carts and merchandise. Others often
remain in high loss areas regardless of running in
the red just to maintain a presence in their
respective communities.
Shopping cart loss according to the Food Marketing
Institute "FMI" costs U.S. retailers over 180
million dollars a year which is passed on to
consumers in the form of higher prices. To address
this staggering loss many an inventor including
myself have concocted dozens of shopping cart
security technologies over the years with only a
small fraction capable of enduring the harsh
operating environment of the common retail store.
The first successful shopping cart immobilization
system was introduced in 1996 at a Lucky's store in
Costa Mesa California. This design was and remains
an "all in wheel" configuration with no external
parts. The product was trademarked "The Wheel" and
several patents later is in use all over the world.
A follow up product to the wheel was introduced
later that year by Carttronics now headquartered in
Carlsbad California and was introduced almost side
by side in neighboring booths with the "Wheel" at
that year's FMI trade show in Chicago. The
Carttronics design was and remains a castor with a
spring loaded high impact plastic scoop like cover
that rotates around and over the caster and once the
scoop reaches its end of travel it inhibits cart
movement by friction. This design was born of market
intelligence conducted by Carttronics during a time
when the "Wheel" experienced flat spotting on its
locking castor when it was in early stages of beta
testing. To address what appeared to be an
unsolvable dilemma at first glance, Carttronics went
to work on an alternative approach not subject to
flat spotting. Subsequently within a month the "Wheel"s
flat spotting was remedied and now there were two
companies vying for market share. The "Wheel" was
sold to "Gatekeeper Systems" in Irvine California in
1998/99. Market dominance is nearly split equally
between Carttronics and Gatekeeper with one or the
other taking the lead at any given time. Both the
Carttronics and Gatekeeper devices operate on each
other's systems sharing the same wireless VLF
command structure permitting partial or complete
retrofit to one locking castor or the other without
any hardware changes.
These systems work by immobilizing one or more of
the shopping cart's wheels when the cart is taken
out of an authorized area of operation typically a
retailer's parking lot. Each shopping cart is fitted
with one or more electronic locking wheels. The
shopping cart is secured by means of an on board
receiver that detects and decodes a digitally
broadcasted AM signal more specifically a OOK or
"On-Off-Keyed" modulated signal that emanates from a
perimeter encompassing transmission line. To avoid
FCC certification of intentional radiators the
carrier frequency is just under nine kilohertz.
Modulation of the OOK carrier is modulated in such a
way as to mitigate spurious radiation or harmonics.
The perimeter wire usually consists of 14 gauge
traffic signal wire and is placed into a one inch
deep saw cut trough about a quarter inch wide.
Tar-like filler is then poured into the saw cut over
the wire to protect it from weather and vandals. The
VLF "Very low frequency" carrier emitted from the
perimeter wire can be adjusted for range or "capture
area" at the loop driver which is simply a modulated
amplifier. The onboard receiver consists of a micro
power front end circuit consisting of a resonant
tank circuit and a detector. The entire circuit
draws just a few microamps of current until it
performs a "lock" or "Unlock" function which draws
several milliamps for a brief period of time. The
power source is usually a 3.2 volt lithium photo
battery or 9V cell. To unlock or reset the locked
caster or wheel the cart must be manually moved away
from the perimeter wire's field of influence enough
to permit a much lower powered hand held remote to
reset and free the secured wheel. To alert store
patrons of the security system, multi-lingual
signage and sometimes a yellow line or pattern is
painted near the buried perimeter wire to warn
customers that their cart will stop if they attempt
to travel beyond that point. To prevent
circumvention of the security device by simply
tilting the cart to favor the remaining unsecured
wheels, an anti-tilt bar is often deployed. This
device acts as a frictional brake and makes it
nearly impossible to overcome.
Other less popular models used rather unconventional
means to disable a shopping cart. One such device
causes one or more of the front wheels to lock in a
turning position limiting travel to a radius
established by the locking angle. If the cart were
travelling at bove normal speeds such a forced
turning radius could cause the cart to tip over
ptentially injuring the patron or a child in the
cart's seat. Another model by Mind quirx LLC slowly
collapses the entire front end of the cart to the
point where the front casters can't function.
Although this design is more expensive than the rest
of the field it is more reliable and safe as it does
not succumb to tip over upon or after lockup.
One short lived locking shopping cart castor from
the mid 90's by a company called Polytracker
utilized a distance counter that would cause the
castor to lock when it reached a site survey
determined distance. This castor would receive a
"Start counting" signal at the retailer's exit and
when the count reached the preset distance the
castor would lock. Unfortunately the designers of
this device failed to consider the countless routes
one can take when leaving a parking lot and just
hoped the cart would not immobilize in an
inconvenient location like a busy intersection or
crosswalk.
Other even less effective contraptions have been
tried and all over the world. One such model was a
castor with a downward extended finger that would
catch on a mindfield of strategically placed
Lego-like blocks distributed about the perimeter of
a retailer’s property. Another attempted solution
used a magnetically sensitive lever that would trip
when the cart traversed a large mind field of
magnets. All the patron had to do was slightly tip
the cart back on its rear wheels and off he goes.
What no one was prepared for was the daunting task
of removing metallic objects like paper clips, key
rings, bobby pins, iron ore and other debris that
would build up on the array of magnets.
Some retailers even resorted to placing bollards or
poles about the store's property to create a
physical barrier small enough to trap shopping
carts. This practice was soon halted after a
landmark American Disabilities case was filed and
won against Safeway Stores.
From court documents
[On April 19, 1994, Timothy Fox, Michela Alioto and
the Disability Rights Council of Greater Washington,
Inc., commenced an action in the United States
District Court for the District of Columbia against
Safeway Inc. ("Safeway"), captioned Fox, et al. v.
Safeway, Inc., Civ. No. 94-0878 (NHJ) (D.D.C.) ("the
Fox Litigation"). The plaintiffs in the Fox
Litigation alleged that at ten Safeway grocery
stores in Washington, D.C., Safeway (a) denied
equally convenient access to persons with mobility
impairments by having in place security bollards
with "flag" gates that prevented a number of persons
who use wheelchairs from entering or exiting
Safeway's stores; and (b) failed to provide
adequate, designated accessible parking. The
complaint alleged that these deficiencies
constituted unlawful discrimination against persons
with disabilities under Title III of the Americans
with Disabilities Act, 42 U.S.C. §§ 12181 et seq.
(the "ADA"), and the District of Columbia Human
Rights Act, D.C. Code §§ 1-2501 et seq. (the "HRA"),
and that Safeway's alleged violation of law caused
injuries to the individual and organizational
plaintiffs.]
Safeway corrected the violations to the satisfaction
of the parties and no further action was taken.
What is on the horizon for a shopping cart near you?
The holy grail of shopping cart containment
technologies, wireless cart containment. This is
just around the corner and will bring shopping cart
containment to the small retailer as there will be
no expensive saw cutting required.
Another cart related technology on the way is cart
mounted shopper guidance and assistance data entry
terminals with displays. IBM is working on a system
that will "localize" or log position or navigation
coordinates of every cart inside the store in near
real time. Strategically located beacons will be
displaced about the store and communicate with a
cart mounted sensor. The patron gets free navigation
and IBM gets to sell the data on the shopper's store
navigation travels and buying habits. Store slotting
fees will be adjusted according to cart navigation
patterns. |
|
|
