Hacker News Reader

Comment by jmclnx | Hacker News Reader

>To combat this, grocery retailers in Europe, such as Aldi, Tesco and Lidl, have coin locks

Where I lived, decades ago one store tried this. They ended up folding because no one wanted to deal with inserting coins, why:

1. What if you had no coins ? Most people in the US dump all coins in a big jar when the get home. I would guess back then, about 30% of the people never carried coins, so the chain instantly lost some market share. Now it is more like 90%.

2. These days, just about everyone under 35 do not carry cash, never mind coins. Back then, this was not too much an issue.

3. At the time, homeless people would cruse the parking log, breaking the device to get the coin. The store would have to replace the devices often.

FWIW, where I buy food, I would sat only 10% or less carriages have issues. Years ago it was much higher but I guess the chain does something different that other chains.

View on HN

Points 1 and 2: you can get a plastic or metal store-branded token for free from a cashier. Or many of us carry our own token attached to your keychain. No coins needed.

Point 3: doesn’t make sense. The carts don’t have coins stored when they aren’t in use by a customer.

For # 3 -- Back the, some people would not bother returning the carriage to get their coin. They just left them where their car was and moved on.

You saw this was decades ago :)

For the plastic tokens, almost no one in the US (at least were I live) would deal with these plastic tokens. I very much doubt that would be accepted.

Also we have deposits on bottles, most people here just toss the in the trash, not bothering to return them. I am sure forcing carriage returns would lose the chain many customers.

For it to work, every single chain would have to adopt this at the same time. Not going to work where I am in the US.

> Also we have deposits on bottles, most people here just toss the in the trash, not bothering to return them.

It doesn't mean the system can't work. It means the deposit is way too low.

The system does work, if you count the homeless people who would take bottles out of trash and return them, treating it as a steady income source. At least that's how it used to work in my country. Homeless people were recycling even before recycling became cool :)

Re: Point 3 that would be cart left with a coin by a careless customer who didn't bother bringing back the cart to have their coin back.

Even better, sometimes homeless people will simply approach a person who just finished packing their groceries to their car trunk and ask "do you want me to put your cart away?" Of course they will do that only if they can keep the coin :)

I don’t understand how coin locks keep the carts better maintained.

With coin locks, customers are still “pulling carts through bumpy parking lots, wrestling them across the threshold of doorways in and out of the store, and forcing them up and down the curb.”

The only difference maybe is they are all being returned to a covered cart shed that is protected from the elements.

Then why blame the customer with all that stuff above?

In Estonia you can just pick up a little plastic tag that fits in the coin slot from the store infodesk, it's actually really simple.

What happens if you don't return it?

You use it next time you come to store.

I understood the point of the carts like this to be to encourage people to return them to the proper place in order to get their coins back.

Does it still serve this purpose when they give you a token like this, or, just have they like ended up with carts with this mechanism they don't really want and would be happy enough with carts without it too? I'm not following the point of it.

You take it back to cart storage if you need the money back to switch for money. If you don't take it out, the store worker will do it when closing the store.

I just hold on to one in case I need it in my wallet.

still works because it is easier to return the cart and take the token with you for your next shopping trip than it is to get a new token every time you go shopping. Additionally it probably also to do with the culture in some part

Aldi does the quarter thing in the U.S. and I’ve never seen it as a problem. Just always keep a couple of quarters in the car (I rarely carry cash otherwise). I never see carts scattered around the parking lot there like I do at most other stores, despite it being only a quarter.

I mean Aldi stores across the US have this system and they seem to be expanding not folding, I'm not sure you can pin this store issues to that specific point.

Plus once it's a generalized system and all carts require coins, it's not like you have the choice anymore.

I think it’s a great system.

Reminds of a big festival I went to in Germany. Beers were 5 euro and came in a sturdy plastic mug. Bring the mug back and get a euro back. 5 mugs and a free beer. I’ve never seen a place so clean after such a large party.

And Aldi cashiers will lend you a quarter if you don't have one.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com