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Comment by mrweasel | Hacker News Reader

> A keychain that acts as a coin to unlock shopping carts.

That's a concern of mine. Once we go all cashless, how will we unlock the shopping carts? Here it's currently being debated if stores should be allowed to reject cash, I think someone forgot about the carts.

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It's a system that was never introduced in the US, and in fact I've never even heard of it until now. So surely one option is to remove the system altogether.

That written, I'm also surprised there's any serious talk of going cashless there. We have plenty of cash-only businesses here that preclude any serious consideration of the notion.

You apparently have never shopped at Aldi. You need a quarter to get a cart. When you take the cart back and lock it into the carts then you get your quarter back.

That's probably why in the US nobody put their cart back. They would do it if they had to get their coin back. Again, to fight laziness, go for the wallet!

And if people won't, there would be droves of people taking the carts and keeping the quarters.

I've been to grocery stores in the US where there's a perimeter sensor that automatically locks up at least one of the wheels of the shopping cart.

You can just hand out a token to people when they become customers/have them buy one for an insignificant amount of money and you'll get more or less exactly the same effect.

In the Netherlands, the largest supermarket chain simply stopped using this system.

[1] https://www.nu.nl/economie/6219200/albert-heijn-neemt-afsche...

There are stores here that hand out coin shaped pieces of plastic that unlock the cart that they give out for free. But if i'm not losing my whole 50 euro cent coin that removes the incentive for returning the cart because i've got a unlimited supply of plastic coins so why are we bothering with a lock?

That'll be a while, and by that point we'll also have carts that beep loudly when removed from the shop area and try to drive themselves back autonomously heh.

Most large supermarkets in my city already have automatically locking wheels if they’re taken out of the stores proximity.

Tap your phone to unlock the cart, or get charged directly.

Or just abandon the system altogether.

Yes please - also put smartphone holder so I can go thru my checklist hands-free (encouraging checklists would probably loose money to shops as now they incentivise mindless browsing and buying useless crap)

Pisses me off shops that make trillions can’t hire a teenager to push them back.

Pisses me off more that grown ups can't put their carts back.

No shops are making trillions.

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