A TikTok video was made popular by a claim that shoppers at Walmart will have to pay $1 to use a shopping cart. In a post that already has more than 9.7 million views, TikTok user Shawn (@soulforgepodcast) shows off what appears to be a checkout mechanism that is attached to a cart at Walmart.
“Starting February 1, Walmart will charge you $1 to check out their carts,” Shawn says.
At first, TikTok users were outraged. “Now I have a great reason to start lining my pockets (with coins),” wrote one user.
“Well, I’ll have to hook up the trailer to the Jeep so I can take the cart home. If I pay it, I keep it,” said another.
“I should charge them to bring the cart from the parking lot!” another exclaimed.
However, there are a few things TikTok users are missing in this video.
First of all, you have to take into account that Shawn lives in Canada, where dollar coins are more common. While it’s not clear if this policy will exist across Canada, regions such as Thunder Bay are known to implement this charge.
Second, it appears that the dollar coin inserted into the cart is a deposit, not a fee. That is, when you finish shopping, you can return the cart and receive your dollar back.
As other TikTok users have pointed out, this is a fairly common system in both the US and Europe.
“It’s like Aldi, once you put the key back (in the cart), they give you $1 back. This is not new, the largest urban cities have been doing this since the 90s,” said another user.
“Aldi has done it for years. So now Walmart eliminates having to go get his cart,” another said.
“If you have ever lived in Germany you will understand this,” another shared.
As previous comments indicated, the Aldi supermarket chain has had a system like this in the US for years.
At Aldi, to check out a cart, you must deposit a 0.25 cent coin. When customers finish shopping, they can get their coin back.
Aldi explains the policy on its website.
“This $0.25 deposit ultimately saves our customers money because we don’t have to hire additional staff to pick up grocery carts,” the site reads.
“To unlock a cart, customers must insert a quarter, and this deposit ensures that shoppers return their cart to the pen to get their coin back.”
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