Hacker News Reader

Comment by londons_explore | Hacker News Reader

Over here in the UK, pretty much every cart (trolley) has fully functioning wheels...

The only exception to that is wheels that auto-lock to stop you stealing the cart when they cross over the property line of the shop (and they then require manual unlocking).

I suspect US cart designs are just bad...

View on HN

I'm not sure where you got that idea from.

The last three trollies I've used all had sticking wheels. Waitrose and Tesco. And many times before. And I regularly have the same problem in France.

But yes, auto locking wheels are universally worse.

My local shop is a Waitrose, and quite often I see 10/15 or so trolleys in the rack have handles that say ‘on loan from trolly services’ or something. I wonder if this is because some are out on repair.

And it's very rare to have to put a coin in a trolley as the article asserts. It's not 1999 any more.

Coins are still standard in Germany so! It is extremely rare to have a broken one around where I live.

The coins are useless. It's a people problem not a mechanical one. You can unlock the cart with the tip of the key like this https://image.made-in-china.com/202f0j00GpWUwrYJnBoN/Sn-Euro... (standard european).

And I frequently do because I HATE german supermarkets anyway!

What's wrong with German supermarkets? Coming from the UK, I generally prefer them.

The only thing that pisses me off is that Lidl and Aldi don't have baskets. In fact my local Lidl had an absurd short-lived policy that you aren't allowed in the shop unless you get a shopping cart! Thankfully they came to their senses. I just use my shopping bag as a basket.

I consider german food products in general to be tasteless (I am not saying they are low quality but it just does not fit my palate). Lidl / Kaufland is fine for veggies. Rewe good in general and I like Billa+ but that's more premium quality anyway.

Just in general not a fan of german food products.

That's very interesting, I love German food

I agree, I find food in German supermarkets pretty bland, there's just something so generic about it all.

Ever since the pandemic most coin locks are always unlocked - and people keep them that way.

I wouldn’t say it’s very rare. Maybe 50% of supermarkets have coinless trolleys?

I guess that's a sarcastic comment. It's rare to have coin less trollies. Or may be it depends where you live and which stores you go to for shopping. Tesco, Asda have coin less trollies while Aldi, Iceland don't for example.

Maybe it's geographic? I can't remember the last time I couldn't use a trolley due to it needing a coin

It's very common in my country, and I think it's actually a very good idea. What's wrong with putting coins in the carts/trolleys?

Someone, potentially a start-up, should develop an appnfor that! Just imagine how much customer data you could collect! Ideally with some in-store location tracking to improve customer surveill... ahh, I mean customer experience! And so good forbthe environment, because no coins!

Don't tempt them... ;-) Also, how do coins impact the environment? They're metal, not plastic!

Coins and the environment? Who cares! The environment sells, and the hygene, coins are dirty!

What do you think, a seed round valuation of 50 million for that idea should be ok? More? The addresable market is beyond HUGE!

You mean something that would unlock carts based on fingerprints? :)

Why not? I woupd focus on lonking it to everything you can get from your average users phone and other online accounts. Improved targeted advertising or something. Fingerprints are fine, too! whatever helps sell it!

Plus, since every cart is matched to a person, no more vandalism or theft!

So NFC reader! Even better. Unlock a cart with your smart watch!

> fingerprints

Pah. That's so 1800's. Modern times would be face* and retinal* scan, plus matching DNA* sample for good measure.

---

* With the expected Terms of Service stating they're allowed to do whatever the hell they want with the data.

Nah, too complex. Just use BLE with an app and this will unlock the cart. Very low friction and it does the cart <-> customer matching.

And make usage of carts mandatory ( door will not open.... )

Go on, go on! I feel we are on to something!

Could be! :)

But only one reserve I have: the carts have to be powered for connectiviy and the electric unlock mechanism. So they could be more expensive. But then let's add an ad screen ( E-Ink! ) on the front inside and have this solve the increase.

Let's put it in a pitch deck! The idea isn't any worse than those non-transparent video screen fridge doors for super markets!

Hold on,ehat if the carts' screen could look inside the frudges and display the content? Augmented reality like? We just to figure out a way to make it all AI powered or something!

Showing you what you got makes no money. Bombing you with dedicated ads for the 20-30 minutes while you're shopping... hell that sounds awfully brilliant!!

you guys rock :). Go make a startup or something...and I'll come with some money!

This whole thread turned into incredible brain storming, didn't it?

I am not asking a lot, but if someone rolls with it, please, please don't deploy it anywhere near me! :-)

Aside, this is why HN still is a a great place online!

Will the escreen show ads on what I should buy based on profiling? Otherwise I don't see the point, to be honest. :)

In Sweden it is very common, and this is mostly a cash-less country. You can usually get these plastic coins to use as a substitute, and I don't think I've ever seen a broken trolley here

In the UK it really varies based on the area the supermarket is in.

There are two large Sainsbury's supermarkets near me - one is right next to a university and suffers from students taking the trolleys back to their student accommodation - these have a coin.

Then there's another in a more affluent suburb - no coin.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com