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People hated shopping carts when they first came out
- Fargoan 4y agoStill do
- egberts1 4y agoStill awaiting for the first real hard-hitting journalistic article … from CNN.
- paulryanrogers 4y agoBaskets as aristocratic, culture never ceases to amaze.
- melling 4y agoPeople don’t like change. Their immediate reaction is often to complain. “We don’t like the new logo” “We don’t like the site redesign“ “We don’t like Swift because it doesn’t have header files” “What I currently do is good enough for me” Personally, I now save myself a lot of time by not trying to explain to people why they are wrong.
- sschueller 4y agoSometimes people are right and companies have to go back having wasted millions on crap and hindering progress because they had to copy bad ideas from others seeing only the money that is being made as a result of marketing and not features or usability. Some examples: Apple's touchbar ESC key or the super low profile non-replacable keyboard, vehicles that switches to touch screen and capacitive button interfaces for critical controls resulting in less safe driving experience, Apple's iPhone "your holding it wrong" decorative metal frame, Apple's refusal to add NFC or wireless charging for years because of the metal back, there are hundreds more.
- xattt 4y agoOne example was QuarkXpress vs InDesign. One was based on traditional ways of working, and brought a paradigm shift towards true digital publishing concepts. Not sure what you could do in one and not the other, but you sure had a lot of cranky greybeards when their shops had to switch, because they had to learn new ways of thinking. You’d also run into the same situation if you had a young whipper-snapper go into a QuarkXpress shop.
- notpachet 4y ago> Some examples: Apple's touchbar ESC key The number of times I accidentally closed an almost-filled-out modal because a few molecules of my finger accidentally brushed the escape key on that @#$&* thing...
- Jenz 4y agoWhile this is true, one must not think of this and forget that one can dislike something new for other reasons than it being new… I dislike shopping carts simply because they look bad and I have no need for them, though I understand they’re useful or even neccessary for some.
- whimsicalism 4y agoDo you live alone in a city? or do you just not cook for yourself very often
- Jenz 4y agoBoth. Which it seems people have a problem with, seeing the downvotes. I had a simple point and a personal opinion, what is the problem?
- LargoLasskhyfv 4y agoThe nail which stands out has to be hammered in! BANG!
- wutbrodo 4y ago> Personally, I now save myself a lot of time by not trying to explain to people why they are wrong. This is 100% it. Most people don't have the cognitive capacity to understand anything that differs meaningfully from the status quo. It's just not productive to pretend they do. It's no different from talking to a young child and insisting that they understand everything at the level adults do.
- paganel 4y agoI personally still prefer a shopping basket to a shopping cart, it “allows” me to buy less stuff, so less money spent. It’s also nice that with less stuff bought you can take the tram or even take a walk on your way home afterwards, no need for a car-ride.
- whimsicalism 4y agoDo you not cook for yourself very frequently? Are you single or just don't have kids? I seriously don't see how people who cook frequently for more than just 1 person get by without a cart without considerable inconvenience.
- gernb 4y agoThink most of the world shops without carts. They just go more frequently and probably live in a situation that makes that easier. (public transportation where there's a grocery store at most every stations ... Japan or nearby ... most of Europe)
- numlock86 4y agoYou just shop on a daily basis. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ I did this for a few months right after work, which was in walking range. Eventually I went back to "shopping big" once every week after I moved and switched my employer, though. But it's doable.
- whimsicalism 4y agoah yes, the considerable inconvenience part of my comment. e: I know that a lot of people do this (often because they don't own cars), but having lived in cities my whole life and done both approaches at various times, the infrequent large shipping trip is much faster when amortized over two weeks. and for those saying all my produce is going to be spoiled or I must just be eating processed foods... absolutely not.
- I-M-S 4y ago
- tonymet 4y agothey were right
- gumby 4y agoToday's resistance to self checkout reminds me of the resistance to these shopping carts and before that the resistance to supermarkets ("why do I have to go fetch my purchases myself?" "I miss the conversation with the shopkeeper" were common examples of complaints that have reappeared in the anti-self-checkout complaints).
- raverbashing 4y agoSome people will just resist any change and complain for the most petty reasons
- gumby 4y agoMy grandmother used to laugh about a famous person-on-the-street interview about Australia going metric: one woman complained, "why can't they just wait until all us old people die". It was her go-to comment about anyone complaining about change, and she found it funnier the older she got.
- yjftsjthsd-h 4y agoAnd sometimes change actually sucks.
- guptaneil 4y agoTo be fair in this case, self-service is objectively worse than having the shopkeeper grab everything you want. The popularity of curb-side pickup of your grocery order shows how nice that model used to be, but self-service is more scalable and cheaper. The same is true when it comes to paying. It’s nicer to have someone else ring you up than you have to learn to do it yourself. I think a better comparison would be people complaining about frictionless checkout (where you just walk out like Amazon grocery stores) in the same way as shopping carts, which is actually a whole new and better experience but can feel so weird that people feel uncomfortable about it. (disclaimer: I’ve never actually tried an Amazon Go store but I do avoid self-checkout whenever I have fruits/veggies to check out)
- danaris 4y ago
- bob1029 4y agoI still hate shopping carts. But they have nothing on the new inventory picker racks that employees are required to push around the store all day. Perhaps its just my region exploding in population, but if I don't go to the grocery store at ridiculous hours (i.e. 6am on the dot this morning), it takes me upwards of 30 minutes to navigate this new chaotic mess.
- degun 4y agoWe’re not exactly loving them now either.
- eru 4y agoIt's interesting that shopping carts that you have to insert a coin into still seem to be uncommon in the US. They were the obvious way to incentivise people to bring the carts back in Germany. (And not necessarily the same people who shopped with them. People who find an abandoned shopping cart in the parking lot would often bring it back to the store to get at the coin.)
- zdragnar 4y agoThe only place in the US that I have seen them is at Aldi
- eru 4y agoAnd that's because they are extremely German.
- zdragnar 4y agoYeah, I probably should have clarified that for anyone who isn't familiar. It's a German grocery chain that also operates in the US.
- bombcar 4y agoAnd even Aldi here has to station a guy to give you a cart and collect those in the parking lot, mainly because people often don’t have the quarter to get one. It’s a cute idea but I’m not sure it’s practical in the long run.
- zdragnar 4y agoI wonder if this is regional or specific to your location. I've been to several (and have frequently shopped at two) and they've never had a person staffing the carts. It has been practical for a long time, but you may be right in that they'll have a hard time with the younger generations that transition to being cashless.
- robonerd 4y ago
- 988747 4y agoI hate them to this day. They often are not easy to drive, their wheels tend to block, and navigating a supermarket full of people pushing those carts is a nightmare. I switched to doing grocery shopping online because of that.
- bombcar 4y agoEven Walmart has begun to have “half sized” carts which are much more manageable - especially as compared to the double-wide SUVs you find at Costco. I wonder if someone could correlate shopping cart size to average purchase size.
- rabuse 4y agoI always feel so dwarfed when I push a Costco cart. They're massive.
- brianwawok 4y agoWith three kids they are just perfect! Plus who goes to Costco for 5 things, the fun is in the mountain of stuff…
- bombcar 4y agoThey’re built with two large child seats side by side - the only thing I’ve ever seen come close to competing is the large lumber carts at Menards or similar.
- PebblesRox 4y agoThe first time I walked into BJs as an adult, I was hit with a huge wave of dysphoria. The size of the place, the quantity of stuff and just the commercialism was overwhelming in a very visceral way. I was really surprised to have such strong negative feelings since I have plenty of good memories of shopping there as a kid. It was always a fun place to go since there were usually lots of free food samples.
- zajio1am 4y agoI usually just park a cart in one place in the supermarket and then carry things to it. If a supermarket is big, then just park the cart consecutively on several places.
- drewcoo 4y agoNathaniel goes shopping! Again. And again. And again. https://www.cnn.com/profiles/nathaniel-meyersohn https://www.cnn.com/profiles/nathaniel-meyersohn
- noarbitration 4y agoSF. Family of three. Not on a budget. Our current setup I find quite relaxing. * Order groceries delivered once every 2 weeks. Basically a reorder of previous order with some alterations - 10 minutes effort. * Top up at local independent grocery nearly every day. Sometimes twice a day (1.5 blocks away). 1-10 items. Easy walk. * Order takeout or restaurant 1-2 times per week I really hate trolleys, lines and hunting for items at big stores.
- bowsamic 4y agoHere in Germany, Lidl and Aldi don't even have baskets anymore. At my local Lidl the security guard won't let you in unless you have a cart, which you need a 1 euro coin to get...
- renewiltord 4y agoFantastic innovation. Crazy to think such things are relatively novel. Makes Costco feasible.
- odiroot 4y agoI still hate them. They take too much space. When I still lived in Germany, I specifically avoided supermarkets in my district that had them.
- cronix 4y agoI wonder if there is actually evidence that people buy more with a cart vs hand held basket, overall. Obviously they likely do for that trip. It seems to me that if I only use a hand held basket, I'm making more trips to the store for my family of 4. Probably daily if not every other day. If I use a cart and purchase a lot, I go to the store less. But, did I actually purchase more or less food in a months duration? I'd bet it's about the same. It's not like I'm literally eating more depending on the method of procurement. I eat about the same, every day. But I would be spending more time standing in lines and wasting more gas by using a basket unless the market was within walking distance and I chose to walk over drive. Personally I don't really like going to shop for anything and buy as much as I can, whether it's food or clothes or anything else. It seems proximity to the store and the number of people you're routinely buying food for would be the bigger predictors of who would use a cart over a basket, as well as lifestyle. I mean, some people choose to drive even if they live next door to the market.
- bentcorner 4y agoI'd be interested to know too. My guess is that you're right that people would shop more often, but I think they'd focus on the essential goods.
- adrianmonk 4y agoMaybe it boosts sales of non-food items. If your hand cart gets full of groceries, you might not pick up other stuff on that trip, like light bulbs, ballpoint pens, a potted plant, or a toy for your kid. After you've left the grocery store, you still need those things. So you go to the hardware store, office supply store, nursery, or toy store because that's where you prefer to buy that stuff if you're making a separate trip anyway. Grocery stores get those purchases because of convenience. Take away the convenience and they might lose the purchases.
- Izkata 4y agoThis is it. I walk to the grocery store and used to use a basket, carrying food home. Non-food was delivered by Amazon. Then near the end of 2020 when so many trips per week was getting to be too much a hassle, I bought a personal cart that I bring to the store with me. Now Amazon is more of a hassle for plenty of non-food items, because it's so trivial to add it to the cart, so I've been getting less online and more from the store.
- MisterBastahrd 4y agoThe only time I personally hate the shopping cart experience is when there are no areas to deposit them in the parking lot. Brookshires is a store that has no cart-deposit locations in the lot, because they still believe that the best way to handle customers is to have their employees load up your car personally. The problem is that the throughput of people at checkout is faster than the car loaders, and so you have an imbalance that either requires people to drag their carts all the way back to the place they got them OR to just leave them in the parking lot. Most people are going to choose option B.
- dougmwne 4y agoI still avoid them. They feel gluttonous to me and I prefer to shop with a basket. I also like the slightly larger baskets on wheels. Filling a cart is just about guaranteed to create some food waste in our household. Also, if I walk or bike to the store, a basket conveniently alerts me when I have picked up too much food to carry home comfortably.
- asperous 4y agoThis comment section is another reason why Hacker News is not like real life :) Shopping carts are wildly popular where I live. I wonder if shopping carts became popular alongside the rise of the car, thus you were more likely to get a “cars worth of groceries.” Another innovation in the early 20th century was the rise of bare-bones, almost-at-cost grocers outside of town that you had to drive to which during the Great Depression was were people were starting to go more often, instead of the local market.
- ttGpN5Nde3pK 4y agoNot a fan of shopping carts in general. But what I really can't stand is when I go to a store and they have more large carts than could ever possibly fit in the store at once, yet very few of the small carts, and usually no baskets. I imagine this is to entice you to use a large cart -> buy more shit.
- carrionpigeon 4y agoThe main reason I "[hate] shopping carts" is that the wheels seem to invariably be defective. I remember reading in the late 90s / early 2000s (the era of 'Walmart is taking over' articles) that this was deliberate. Carts with misaligned wheels that don't run straight force customers to slow down and spend more time moving from aisle to aisle. No idea if actually true, though.
- dfxm12 4y agoMy city banned plastic bags. I now prefer a basket because it's a better gauge of what I can carry in my 2 tote bags, which is now a concern.
- spookthesunset 4y agoOur local grocery stores don’t have baskets anymore because they kept getting stolen.
- jobigoud 4y ago> it's a better gauge of what I can carry in my 2 tote bags Why not use the tote bags directly instead of the basket? This way it calibrates for size but also weight & resistance. This also gets you into a habit of having your bag deployed before you start shopping so less chance to forget it and have to buy another one. I shop with a single bag sized for my ride back, even the baskets are way too large.
- parenthesis 4y agoThe real question is: do they ever clean the handles?
- jobigoud 4y agoFace masks are no longer necessary where I live but the grocery stores still have the hand sanitizer gel at the entrance that most people use. I hope this stays up.
- ge96 4y agoI try to shop in bulk eg. once every 2-3 weeks so I use a shopping cart.
- dagurp 4y agoMen not wanting to use carts fearing that it would make then look weak sounds plausible but the reason they gave for women sounds strange to me.
- sieabahlpark 4y agoIt's almost like CNN isn't very credible.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- diebeforei485 4y agoIn cities you often see these smaller two-level shopping carts[1]. They're better than a basket and take less space (and are much more efficient with space) than a normal shopping cart. [1] They look like this https://www.amazon.com/Two-Tier-Shopping-Cart-300/dp/B076F9Z2XJ https://www.amazon.com/Two-Tier-Shopping-Cart-300/dp/B076F9Z...