why is returning the cart intrinsically some sign of “goodness” but returning your plates to the kitchen and washing them at a restaurant is not? The customer is at the store to fulfill their needs, not the store’s. Taking the groceries from the checkout to the car in a cart helps fulfill the customer’s aims. Returning the cart does not, same as picking up trash in the store car park does not. And the revenue from customers pays for return of the carts from the parking lot, so most customers feel that is a better deal than a place that forces them to return the carts.
The original article and many of the comments have a hugely moralistic tone - where are people expected to learn these implicit rules? If the store doesn’t care enough to communicate these expectations (assuming they even have them, and that they don’t only exist in the minds of the self-appointed “cart police”), why should customers follow them?
The original article and many of the comments have a hugely moralistic tone - where are people expected to learn these implicit rules? If the store doesn’t care enough to communicate these expectations (assuming they even have them, and that they don’t only exist in the minds of the self-appointed “cart police”), why should customers follow them?