Metropol

Even so, the ever so slightly pedantic point of my post is the cost of lost/stolen trolleys to the supermarkets IS hundreds of thousands of pounds.

Ebeneezer Scrooge wrote:Even so, the ever so slightly pedantic point of my post is the cost of lost/stolen trolleys to the supermarkets IS hundreds of thousands of pounds.

But Scrooge, each individual supermarket loses an average of £150 of trolleys per annum, so it isn't beneficial to install a £5000 anti-theft system (guess) in each supermarket to prevent people nicking them. It would take 30 years for the system to pay for itself. And the whole fleet of trolleys would probably need replacing at least once in that period of time anyway, which means paying extra for the special wheels again.

I'll give you that one - I assume the anti theft devices are going in the worst affected supermarkets, so the cost would only be applicable to those who were making the worse losses. Obviously, the use of average cost is a bit misleading since not all supermarkets will be affected in the same way. Maybe it is worth the cost of anti theft devices in the cases where it is used.

However, it is my understanding that the anti-theft devices are installed in part to satisfy local authorities who end up with the clear up costs when the trolleys are blocking culverts etc. The power of a landlord authority is surprising, even compared to the power of the supermarket giants!

Ok.

What's wrong with sticking a really long pole on Trolleys, like they do in Farmfoods.

The destination for some of those lost trolleys?

http://news.bbc.co.uk/local/tyne/hi/peo ... 295356.stm

wells wrote:What's wrong with sticking a really long pole on Trolleys, like they do in Farmfoods.

Because you would not be able to push them around car parks.

I believe there is currently a patent law case going on in the UK, with two different inventors both claiming to have invented the wheel-locking system.