Do Lost Carts = Lost Sales?

For retailers, certain events such as Holidays and stock up trips for upcoming adverse weather conditions can bring a giant influx in sales. For many retailers, much of their yearly revenue is gained during the Holiday season. So what happens if the means through which a customer makes these purchases isn’t available? If your average basket size is over $75, your shopping carts are the lifeblood of your store’s sales.

For many retailers though, shopping cart loss is treated as an asset loss and little more. But what happens if you lose enough carts where customers walk in and there are literally none available? 

You haven’t just lost your carts, you’ve lost sales. 

This image was taken at a $1 million per week store in Chicago before a large winter storm was due to hit...This store easily lost $100,000 in sales that day alone.

For many stores, this doesn’t have to take one mass theft event: If you lose 5% of your fleet each month, in 5 months, 25% of your carts will be unavailable. With a cart fleet that’s 25% smaller - your store can easily experience a 3% drop in sale or $150,000 per month, per store.

It gets worse. As more carts are lost, less are available in circulation to withstand peak shopping times. Lost sales grow exponentially versus the number of carts lost. While a 3% loss in sales produced by losing one quarter of your fleet may only translate to $5,000 per day, a 37% cart fleet loss translates to $23,000 lost in sales per day. Lose 50% of your cart fleet? All of a sudden that lost sales number climbs to $70,000 per day.

*Data based on a 200 cart fleet with an average of 2,000 daily transactions and a basket size of $75.

A store operating with only half of its available cart fleet could easily lose millions in sales if left unchecked. Even if noticed and addressed quickly, you could be looking at several weeks of lost sales by the time replenishment carts arrive.

For many stores, this creep in lost carts can go undetected until these critical thresholds of 37% fleet loss and beyond are experienced. By this time, it is often too late to recoup the growing amount of lost sales. 

Through a collaboration with P&H Casters, we’ve developed the first completely wireless trackable wheel. The iWheel gives you real-time insight into your onsite cart inventory. If you manage hundreds of locations where cart loss can occur - the iWheel system can notify you before you begin to experience exponential sales loss.

For stores with a known, high-rate theft issue, our QuickTrack system can be installed on any cart type and geolocate your lost carts and issue retrieval work orders - automatically. The breadcrumb trail feature also allows your loss prevention team to track WHO takes your carts and enable more effective prosecution and case-building efforts.