In a rather interesting revelation courtesy of The New Paper, those shopping trolleys we just leave lying around in carparks and other random places actually bleed supermarkets pretty heavily.
Sheng Siong alone loses $120,000 a year on just trolleys, with 90 metal trolleys and 180 plastic ones getting misplaced across its outlets on average each month.
NTUC FairPrice lose about 1,000 trolleys annually, spending about $150,000 every year to maintain, replace and retrieve their abandoned trolleys. Staffers often find them dumped along pavements, taxi stands and nearby housing estates even, when folks simply want to wheel their items straight to their doorstep.
Despite having to deposit a one-dollar coin into the metal trolleys, they still get abandoned where ever convenient to the customers, and both supermarkets have tried to combat the habit in different ways. NTUC puts up reminders about returning trolleys and partnering up with Town Councils to educate the public. At Sheng Siong’s Woodlands Centre Road branch, customers have to deposit one of their shopping items at the counter so that they’ll return to pick it up when they return their trolley.
