Is Walmart Going to Start Charging Customers To Use Shopping Carts?

It's bad enough that customers either have to wait in endless lines at checkout or face the dreaded self-checkout at Walmart stores.  Now, a TikTokker named Shawn, (@soulforgepodcast) has posted a video that shows a payment mechanism attached to a shopping cart.

In the video, Shawn says that starting February 1st, Walmart customers will have to pay a dollar to use a shopping cart. That's outrageous. Ok, I might be willing to pay if I didn't have to use a cart with one of those wobbly wheels and baby snot from the last customer.

Back to the outrage.

What's next? Maybe they'll offer a discount on your bill at checkout if you mop the floors or stock a few shelves.  The way prices are going, that might actually work.

It turns out the whole charging for a shopping cart thing is in fact happening in many Walmart locations in Canada. You don't actually pay to use the cart. It is a deposit. You get the money back if you return the cart to the designated cart corral.

My outrage is starting to slip a little.

The idea is that a deposit might encourage shoppers to put the shopping cart in the corral instead of scraping the side of my car in the parking lot. Further, if customers return their carts to the designated area, then the store wouldn't have to hire as many people to gather up the carts in the parking lot and could reduce prices.

Some Aldi stores in the United States are already doing this.

There it goes my outrage is suddenly gone.

This might actually be an idea I could get behind. I still am no fan of self-checkouts. I guess, when it comes to changes at Walmart,  I have to take baby steps.  In any event, anything that might save me money with prices the way they are going is a good thing.

I just hope if this shopping cart thing catches on, they take plastic.  Who carries cash anymore?

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