Tuesday, May 26, 2009

"Please Return Trolley" campaign by NTUC Fairprice

I read of how many supermarkets are losing their shopping trolleys daily which translates into a sustantial loss every year in the Straits Times today. For NTUC Fairprice and Giants hypermart, the losses in revenues due to lost shopping trolleys translate to $300,000 per annum!
The "$1 deposit" system fails to stop customers from abandoning their shopping trolleys anywhere they like after they have unloaded their purchases. $1 is now not really a lot of money to Singaporeans as cimpared to the distance and time they need to spend to walk back and return the trolley.
Supermarkets are beefing up their security forces to help monitor the trolley loss situation and hence may be spending even more money to combat the problem.
My proposal is to have an automated system whereby shoppers scan their IC cards in order to free a locked trolley for use in their shopping. If they fail to return the trolley, the authorities would be able to track them and bring them to task.

No comments :

Total Pageviews