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The shopping cart has long been one of the most critical pieces of equipment to large format retailers since it was first used to revolutionize how we shop. Think about it, what is the one piece of equipment that retailers purchase that nearly every one of their customers touch every day. It is the beginning, first impression, facilitator, and the last impression of nearly every shopping experience. For years retailers struggled with the problem of returning their shopping carts from the parking lot to the front of the store. Having plenty of shopping carts readily available for customers is the #1 uncontested requirement for even basic customer service and essential to the successful operation of the store; customers with shopping carts spend more time and money than without shopping carts. Savvy retailers responded to this fact by increasing both the number and the size of their shopping carts. Then came larger and larger stores and finally shopping Supercenters which made cart retrieval even more labor intensive than it already was. Cart retrieval soon became a major factor in store operations, adding overhead, potential liability and risk of injury or damage to employees, customers, retail facilities themselves and customers’ vehicles. Add to all of this the reality that the workforce is getting older, more diverse, cart return related injury claims were skyrocketing at the same time as healthcare costs and liability risk insurance costs. Customer Service personnel were spending time with shopping carts instead of with customers and employee turnover was increasing as a direct result. Bill Grimes, manager of a large discount retailer recalls when he offered his service personnel $20.00 per hour to return carts from the parking lot to the front of the store… and no one volunteered.
OSHA reports, strain- related injuries cost US employers about $20 million annually in workers comp claims.
Then in late 1995 the ever increasing shopping cart management dilemma was brought to the attention of Dan Johnson, founder of Dane Technologies and a visionary who saw the answer to all of these challenges in one simple power assist vehicle to mechanize the cart return process. Dan “bet the farm”, persevered through very intensive product development challenges to create a safe integrated shopping cart return system where one person can now do the work of many; and they can do this previously labor intensive task faster, safer, with a much lower risk of injury or damage to property. Plus, now, a task that was limited primarily to the young physically developed associate can quickly, easily and safely be done by nearly anyone in the workforce. Since the introduction of the QuicKART® Dane Technologies has been the industry leader in Power Cart Return systems. Today the QuicKART® is in use at many of the Worlds leading store chains including Target, Wal-Mart, Kmart, Costco, Supervalu, H.E.B., Tesco and Sainsbury just to name a few. After extensive and repeated side-by-side testing and evaluation, the QuicKART® and Dane Technologies have been selected as the preferred vendor at many of the Worlds Market Leaders. There are over 10,000 QuicKART’s® working around the globe every day, increasing operation efficiencies, productivity, job satisfaction, employee retention, the range of potential job candidates; all while at the same time reducing or eliminating shopping cart related injuries, property damage, liability risk, shopping cart inventory and giving retailers a huge competitive advantage, an edge over their competition.
Retailers utilizing a power cart system by Dane Technologies, Inc. see a reduction in labor of between 30 and 60 hours per week and an elimination of injuries related to manual cart return.
Now, we have just created the new future of power cart return for the Retail industry with the all new QuicKART M3 ® series, the 3rd generation of the best-selling remote control power cart return system. Also, we have launched new improved models of our industry-leading SmartKART® the ultimate power shopping machine from the original and proven world leader of battery operated, light to medium capacity, power assist machines.