The Meeting Place > Hot Topics > Coinless shopping trolleys, but there’s a catch

Coinless shopping trolleys, but there’s a catch

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Janelle Ward
1 yr ago

Keeping track of shopping trolleys is an endless – and thankless task. Many stores make you insert a coin to encourage you to do the right thing once you’ve unloaded your shopping – but who has a coin these days? – while others employ collectors to keep track of them.

Now, a major supermarket chain is trialling “coinless shopping trolley locks”. Customers download an app and store their credit card details to unlock trolleys.

The trial is at a Coles supermarket in Camberwell in Melbourne. Customers need to download a special Coles sMart Shop app, purchase a $2 digital coin and then scan a QR code that has been fixed onto the trolley.

The $2 deposit is returned to the customer’s account once the trolley is returned and locked in a collection bay.

The store says that shoppers who don’t want to participate can ask a staff member to unlock a trolley for them.

A Coles spokesperson said the new technology did not have a GPS installed and would not track the trolley user’s movements.

The spokesperson told the Herald Sun that Coles “hoped the technology will help minimise abandoned shopping trolleys in the community”.

Do you remember to carry a coin so you can use a trolley? Does this trolley app appeal to you?

7 comments
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clancambo
1 yr ago

Here we go again, penalise all those who do the right thing by making things difficult.Wouldn't shop Coles. They are NOT having my credit card details.

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Sen.Cit.90
1 yr ago

Neither will I should that system come near my Coles branch

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tisme
1 yr ago

of all the ideas I prefer Aldi's 

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Sen.Cit.90
1 yr ago

For $1 Aldi will sell you a coin that unlocks the trolley, a coin you keep until needed again.

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Sue Ridge
1 yr ago

Almost every time I shop at Aldi I find a trolley abandoned in the carpark. $2.00, it seems, is not enough of an incentive to return the trolley and get your coin back. I get the use of the trolley and the $2.00 when I finish. As regards abandoned trolleys, there was a system where the wheels locked when leaving the carpark which prevented the trolley being taken outside a designated area.

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Leanne
1 yr ago

I bought tokens from eBay that can unlock any trolleys however I return them to the trolley back and leave them unlocked for the next person. If Coles brings this in at my shops I won't be using it. I don't want them to have my credit card details.

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KSS
1 yr ago

 

Given that selfish shoppers abandon their trolleys in the car parks within just a few metres of a trolley bay, there is no hope this or any other payment scheme will work. There are tokens and keys available to anyone with internet access that unlock them even where coins are 'required'.

The only thing that will is to have trolleys that have a wheel lock so it physically cannot be moved beyond a certain distance from the shop front e.g. further than the car park. There are supermarkets that have this and I even know of one Woolworth store that received building consent predicated on this type of trolley to prevent them being left around the residential area.

All three supermarkets are as bad as each other. There is an app you can download where you can report the abandoned trolley to the appropriate store who then collects them. The worst collector in my area is Aldi. At least Coles and Woolworth usually remove them in a day or so. Aldi take more than a week.

And it is not disabled or old people that are doing the wrong thing either. It is otherwise young and healthy people who rely on others cleaning up after them.

 

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Pacahawi
1 yr ago

Trolley boys in supermarket car parks rely on returning trolleys from the park to the shop to earn a small wage to keep themselves and sometimes their families. My younger son earned his first wage after school and weekends pushing trolleys. Why penalise them?

 

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Beemee
1 yr ago

Spot on Pacahawi, I know of a lot of kids just starting their working life and this was their first job until they found something they wanted as a career.

Coles do that here and I will blow that Manager to hell and back. Wont be the first time and wont be the last (a wonder they haven't banned me, LOL).

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Celia
1 yr ago

LOL

I cannot remember how many years ago that was stopped in WA.

I refused to shop in supermarkets that had coin trolleys end of story.

7 comments



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