Shopping carts are built for the long haul - literally. Many stolen shopping carts can travel long...
We partnered with one of our customers to go on a cart collection run with their team to retrieve stolen shopping carts. This store retrieved carts once per month. As a result, there are often a high number of carts to retrieve during their collection runs. These carts can also travel long distances because of how long they can be left off property. Thanks to QuickTrack’s “location anywhere” technology and the “retrieval route planner” tool, what would normally be a difficult collection run, was 92% effective.
Of the 36 off-property, stolen carts, 33 were retrieved. The remaining 3 carts were at locations where retrieval was not possible. These locations are conveniently saved and recorded in QuickTrack’s common cart locations dashboard and are sent to local authorities or referred to the retailer’s loss prevention and legal team.
To collect the 36 stolen shopping carts, a truck was rented by the store’s team and a retrieval list was downloaded from QuickTrack. This list sorts all carts that are off property and organizes their locations for an optimal retrieval route. This list is uploaded into a routing or maps app and the collection begins.
This allows anyone, whether they have QuickTrack access or not, to take advantage of the location data. The retrieval list can be loaded into any type of app and used on any type of device (iPhone, Android, etc.).
While on the retrieval run, many other carts were found from other retailers, including other carts with security or tracking measures. Many of these other carts were located a long distance from their likely home stores so many of these security features are unusable at those distances. Because of QuickTrack’s unlimited tracking range, all stolen carts could be found, no matter how they were taken or where they were located.
Of the 36 off property carts, half were in residential areas. The remaining 18 carts were spread between other commercial properties or industrial/waste collection sites like scrap yards. While most municipalities do not allow scrap yards to freely collect carts (some do though), MANY of these businesses still end up with a large number of stolen shopping carts.
The cart retrieval team for this retailer is a seasoned, experienced group that has been collecting carts for several years. Most of the collected carts were in locations that were not known as common destinations for lost or stolen shopping carts. This makes cellular based tracking technology paramount for any retailer with a serious cart theft issue: The majority of the carts you lose are going to unknown locations.
To learn more about QuickTrack and how Store Technology Group can solve your cart theft challenges, reach out through the form below.
