Think about the last time you loaded groceries into your vehicle. Bags stowed, receipt tucked away… what happened to the cart?
For today’s poll, we want to know: Do you always return your shopping cart to the cart return or back to the store? Or do you leave it wherever is most convenient?
For some of you, this isn’t even a question. Returning the cart is automatic. It feels like basic courtesy, a small way to keep things orderly and make life easier for the next person.
Others are more situational. Maybe you usually return it, but bad weather, mobility issues, or a long walk across a crowded lot can change the calculation. In those moments, convenience sometimes wins, even if you know you’ll think about it later.
Some people see cart returns as a quiet measure of personal responsibility. Others think it’s no big deal and assume store employees will handle it. Either way, this simple act tends to spark surprisingly big opinions.
So what about you? Do you always return your shopping cart, or does it depend on the situation? Go ahead and vote in today’s poll and feel free to explain your reasoning in the comments below if you’d like.
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RVDT2823
I always return carts and have even grabbed someone else’s to return as well. I hate getting “cart dings” to my paint. I love places like Aldi where you live in pay for your cart and get a refund when you return. It.
I do as well, 100% of the time.
It always boggles my mind how unbelievable selfish and lazy some people are. Sorry, ZERO excuse not to return the carts properly.
I’m with you, I cannot believe how many lazy disgusting people are out and I am returning one, not to just the corral, but back to the store enter door, if someone is coming in and I can see that they are in need, I state that this rig’s wheels ride straight and is a good one. I also have to state I have spent all the $$$ on this rig and they are at least in for a good straight ride….(;+)………
Always and without exception.
The simple concept of “return things to where they belong” isn’t a difficult trait to embrace, even in bad weather.
And if I realize I grabbed a wrong item, I don’t just leave it at the checkout or wherever I realized my mistake. I take it back to where it belongs.
If a preschooler can understand it’s not somebody else’s job to chase behind them and pick up after them, it shouldn’t be a struggle for an adult. Especially an RV’er.
To everyone who get’s po’d. We are showing our age and upbringing. This “parental instruction” is no longer taught in todays world.
Regarding shopping carts; I return the cart, but once in awhile, as my 100 yr old mom pointed out, take the cart to the handicap parking area. Those carts are helpful to those older folks who might need a little extra thoughtfuness.
The only time I don’t return the card to a corral is when I’m parked in a handicap space. My wife has a lot of trouble walking and uses a cart as an aid when walking through the store on the days when she feels good enough that she doesn’t have to ride in a handicap cart. Most the time I even return the cart when we are parked in handicap. Just depends on how bad the weather is, how much space is around the handicap spots and how my wife is doing
Sorry, but it is your wife that needs the cart, not you.
No reason you cannot return the cart to the store or corral after your wife is in the car.
Bad weather is not an excuse.
My wife also uses a cart as a walking aid. She gets in the car, and after emptying the cart, I return it to one of the designated cart collection places.
Sorry, sounds like an excuse. The handicapped don’t want cart dings in their cars either. Handicapped parking is near the store entrance where they, like nearly everyone else, expects to find a (hopefully) dry shopping cart.
Yeah sure except now no one can park in the handicap space because someone too lazy to move it to the corral spot 5′ away.
Yes. Everything has a place every place has a thing. Doesn’t get lost, blown away and is ready to use again. I observed a run away cart slamming into an elder lady all because someone didn’t put it in its place. I never have more than six bags so I leave the cart in the store and carry the bags to the vehicle. It saves those extra steps to the cart return.
Walmart where I shop is a zoo, negotiating the parking lot is hazardous. I park by the main road where it’s a little less crowded and always put the cart in the corral. For some reason both corrals in that area were removed and now the closest one is all the way to the other end of the isle. It’s now a chore to put the cart up but not as hazardous as parking in other areas of the lot.
WalMart is a zoo, both inside and outside the store.
You wouldn’t want to know what I would like to do to the lazy people that leave their carts
At a small store parking lot it goes back to the store, but in a big lot, if I’ve had to park far out there, I return it to a cart corral. That wasn’t an option in the poll. I rarely leave it “wherever”
Yes, I always put mine, and others, in the cart corral. Hate it when people leave ’em in handicap spots.
**update** When they are in the way in the handicap spot.
Shopping cart theft is a major problem for retailers. Many put up barriers so you cant remove the cart from the lot but people have found a way to get around this. We were dismayed when we went to a major drug store chain and there were no carts. We talked to the manager and he said that month alone they had 50 carts stolen. I do not like having to search for a coin to get a cart, I dont know that 25 cents is enough of a deterrent to theft. But I always return my cart to the store or closest bin to the store.
I just don’t understand people who don’t return their cart. Who do they think is going to do it? Jeez.
I park as far away from the entrance of the store as I can. I deal with the issue of shopping carts by grabbing the closest cart to my vehicle & take it into the store. If I’m not going to buy much, I carry my own bags & don’t take a cart out of the store.
If 77 percent of folks return their shopping baskets to the proper place, why are 80 percent of the available baskets where I want to park ?
we always return the carts no matter if we’re parked at the very last spot, by the road because we have the fifth wheel hooked up. We have also taken other carts left by people.
More than once, I have been thanked by the “cart guy” because I tend to pick up loose carts and shove then together at or next a corral. Next to it if not enough room in there.
I worked at an A&P on Long Island, NY as a teenager. Once a week the manager would load us in his car and drive us around the neighborhood to find carts folks had used to get their groceries home. We would gather up those carts and push them back to the store no fancy motorized cart pusher. Something for the parking lot. So I return when a return spot is close. Ninety percent of the time I park as far away from the door as possible and leave the cart on the grass.
We always return. We also make a point of grabbing a cart that has been abandoned in the lot and take one of those into the store to shop with. There’s always a selection to choose from.
Aldi’s 25 cent cart idea is brillant. No worry about run away cart hitting your car. No need for an employee to return the carts to the cart area. This method works around the World. What’s wrong with WalMart?
The 5% people should grow up, act like adults, and take the carts back. In high winds those unsecured carts blow across the parking lot and hit/damage vehicles. Unlevel parking lot will do the same.
When overnighting in Walmart, Costco, etc. I can see where many RVs parked because of the abandoned carts setting where the door was. I usually police the entire lot so RVers don’t get a worse name. First time I saw this I was flabbergasted. How rude and entitled.
I always return a cart to the cart corral and I also park my vehicle far away from the entrance. The extra walk does me good.
One of my pet peeves is people that leave there cart where ever. I always return mine no matter what. I now live in Florida where the weather is nice but people leave there carts all over sometimes one parking spot from a corral. When in the north even in winter it seems people return there carts better then here in the south. I guess it’s the all about me crowd.
At Walmart, I always return all the carts I see in the RV area.
I also pickup trash – leaving it cleaner than I found it.
For fun, go to YouTube and look for Cart Narcs. They go around the parking lots and shame people that don’t return the carts to the corrals or store.
I was a “stock boy” in college and hated doing cart duty because of some “lazy slob”- male or female.
I don’t return the electric cart but Publix designates bag personnel to walk out with electric cart shoppers, load the bags, and bring the cart back. When I have enough energy to push a cart generally DH loads up, returns the cart, then texts me when he’s pulled around to the egress. I used to pick up trash in the parking lot as I was walking in but no longer do so- the spirit s willing but the flesh is weak.