PHOENIX — Imagine going to a store, you go to grab a cart, but there aren't any available. Customers all across the valley are finding themselves in this predicament, and in some cases, it looks like no end is in sight.
"The stores are really having a difficult time getting those shopping carts to sometimes meet their demands at high traffic times," Mark Miller said.
Shopping carts are a necessity, and when they're not available to customers, it can be a big problem for the consumer and the business. Mark Miller, who's the Arizona Food Marketing Alliance President, knows about the issue all too well since he's involved with the Arizona Cart Service (ACS).
That service cleans, fixes, and drives out to pick up abandoned carts. Miller said they can be found anywhere like neighborhoods, streets, sidewalks and ravines. In many cases, the carts found are damaged and are in need of repair before they can go back to where they belong.
"It's usually not associated with one particular retailer," Miller said. "It goes across the board for an area."
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One area seeing the worst impact is Sunnyslope in Phoenix. Miller said the problem has gotten so bad that retrieval efforts, in some spots, are now happening twice a day.
"We've added more service, more drivers to go more frequently to get shopping carts back," he said. "It's very difficult to go to a grocery store if you don't have a shopping cart."
There are two possible reasons behind the issue, Miller said
One is when someone doesn't have the necessary transportation to take home items, so they'll push the cart as close as they can to their destination. He said clusters of carts are usually found near bus stops or apartment complexes.
The second is the rise in homelessness.
"The homeless has increased in Arizona over the last several years," he said. "And a lot of times they use those to store their belongings and then we lose those shopping carts for a while. And when we do get them back, we spend a lot of time getting them in a workable order, sanitizing them and everything else."
"There are as many reasons for people becoming unsheltered as there are sheltered people," Jim Baker said.
Baker is the Dining Rooms Program Manager for St. Vincent de Paul, an organization that brings crucial resources to anyone in need.
"We take for granted we have our vehicles, our homes, we don't have to take our things with us," Jim Baker said.
Baker said the taking of shopping carts is a problem: But for the past few years, they've done what they can to help.
"One of the things we do here is we will help folks get out of a shopping cart if they come here with a cart," he said. "We'll try and get them a roller bag or something, or some other type of cart like a bicycle cart. And we'll take that cart and we store them here and we work with the city who comes pick them up and gives them back to whoever lost it."
It's been an effective tool in the fight against missing carts. He says he's seen fewer carts scattered around the area, but notes there's still work to be done, especially with the rise of homelessness across the area.
"It's getting worse, it's not getting better," he said. "We've seen an increase in the numbers, especially out of the pandemic: The amount of younger folks have grown and those 50+ has grown. We're here to help."
At $200 a cart, and usually shipped from China, replacing the carts is no easy task. Miller said they've also been working hard to try and keep the carts where they belong by adding locking wheels.
"There's a wire around the perimeter," Miller said. "So if the shopping cart crosses it, the wheels are supposed to lock up. Our members are doing their best, spending a lot more labor in their parking lots to get the carts circulated quickly as they can. But our members have spent a lot of money to keep carts working properly with new wheels and repairs and we've helped them. But we're finding that replacing the lost carts is becoming difficult and it doesn't seem to be showing any signs of improvement in the near future."
If you see an abandoned cart, it's easy to report it. Just call 800-843-2278 where you can leave a message saying where you found it and it should be picked up within 24 hours. You can also report it online by going here.
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