Aldi with a secret trick in every branch – customers don’t notice

The shopping cart or cart is always a faithful companion in the supermarket or stand. But above all, shopping carts in stores often get lost.

Discount company Aldi addresses the problem and protects its shopping carts in a very special way – in a way that most customers don’t even notice. This is behind her.

Aldi: Damage in the millions

According to a report by “Neue Westfälische”, 100,000 shopping carts disappear in Germany every year. But are there always criminal cart thieves in the business? Frank Hoste, Head of Inventory Variance Research at the EHI Retail Institute in Cologne, explains the development as follows:

“I suppose that this is mostly due to transport reasons, so customers would like to take their purchases home,” Horst told the newspaper “Neue Westfälische”. It is also possible to use one or the other for migrations. However, in the end, most cars will return. Horst does not see the intention to bring the car to the scrap metal dealer as the main reason: “A car like this has a scrap value of maybe 2 to 3 euros. This must be very large sums to be useful.”

So is your cart worthless? This is not entirely true. The car usually costs between 120 and 200 euros – depending on the equipment. The trade has to deal with large amounts of damages – an estimated 12,000,000 to 20,000,000 euros per year.

Aldi: This is how the opponent protects his cars

In order not to have to buy new cars and spend a lot of money, Aldi used technology that was not noticeable at first glance. The key word is: immobilizer.

It sounds simple at first – but how exactly does it work? Once the shopping cart leaves the disc area, the front wheels are blocked and the cart cannot be moved. The reason for this is that there are magnetic strips installed in the floor. Potential cart thieves can no longer escape.

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