Trolleys here, there, everywhere

IF YOU can’t beat them, teach them.

Supermarket chain FairPrice is adopting a new, softer approach in combating trolley theft after previous measures proved unsuccessful.

Singapore’s largest supermarket chain is embarking on a publicity drive to remind its customers not to cart trolleys away – a perennial problem that is costing the chain about $150,000 a year.

It says it has tried everything, from having a dedicated team to remind customers not to take trolleys away, to imposing a $1 deposit and remotely locking trolley wheels beyond a certain point.

Yet an average of 200 trolleys still go missing each month, a figure that has not budged for the past five years.

But FairPrice believes the latest move aimed just before the festive season, when more trolleys are lost could be the answer to its problem.

“If customers want to steal a trolley, they will,” said its managing director Seah Kian Peng.

“The solution is education, to teach them that it is anti-social behaviour, a frustration to us and an even greater frustration to our customers.” Posters, in the four main languages, urging people to be more considerate and return trolleys after use will be put up in all outlets.

The campaign will be supported by the Singapore Kindness Movement, which will be rolling out a courtesy lion mascot at some of the stores to remind people to return the trolleys.

The current system of requiring customers to deposit $1 will remain.

FairPrice’s most radical initiative to curb trolley theft was to implement a system in 2001 that locked a cart’s wheels.

But the trial project flopped. For one thing, the system involved remote technology and was too expensive.

The problem also did not stop. Faced with locked wheels, the trolley thieves were unfazed and simply carried the trolleys away.

The chain had even considered harsher penalties such as prosecution, but decided against it.

Said Mr Seah: “We do not want to take punitive measures. I’d rather take a softer education approach. There are many ways to skin a cat, hopefully (returning trolleys) becomes a societal norm.”

The lighter approach is also in line with those taken by other chains like Sheng Siong and Giant Hypermarket, which are also battling against the problem.

Sheng Siong, which has 23 outlets, loses about 20 trolleys, worth a total of $2,600, a month. It offers a service where staff help customers load their shopping into cars and taxis.

Giant’s eight outlets report about 100 lost trolleys a month, an increase of about 10 per cent over the past three years.

To deter trolley theft, it has a notice on its trolley handle bars that states the proper use of the trolleys, and warns that unauthorised use beyond the store and carpark may result in prosecution.

A FairPrice survey of 356 customers including trolley thieves revealed that customers cite heavy groceries and laziness as the main reasons they cart trolleys away.

Most of the trolleys are left abandoned near the supermarket, in parks and chalets, at HDB void decks, and in extreme cases, chained to customers’ houses.

Such inconsiderate behaviour can lead to inconvenience for some customers, who say trolleys abandoned in carparks or HDB void decks are a safety hazard.

Said father of two Jim Foo, 55, who shops at the FairPrice outlet in Bukit Merah: “Sometimes, there are trolleys left in carpark lots and I have to get out of the car to wheel them away.” Mrs Gracia Wong, 53, a housewife who shops at an Ang Mo Kio FairPrice outlet, said that while she wheels back the trolley every time, trolley bays should be made more accessible an issue FairPrice said it would improve on.

FairPrice’s dedicated trolley team members are hoping the new measures will make their job easier.

FairPrice employee Ang Yong An, 43, said that when he tries to stop customers from wheeling trolleys away, they sometimes tell him off, retorting “it’s not your trolley, why do you care?” “It will make my job easier if customers understand why I need to get the trolleys back,” said Mr Ang, who has picked up trolleys from drains a half-hour walk away from the FairPrice outlet in AMK Hub.

“But of course the best thing would be if they learn to stop abandoning them.”