Shopping Carts and Cooperative Principle # 6
Shopping Carts and Cooperative Principle # 6 (Cooperation among Co-ops) in action!
By Kenna Eaton, GM
A couple of years ago realizing that our little grey carts were nearing the end of their best-use-by date, I asked Dave, our Frontend manager, to purchase new ones for the store. Dave, being Dave, did his research and finally chose the size he thought would work best for us—with the bonus space for 5g bottle of water to fit neatly in the bottom half, and a bag hook. This seemed like a great choice for our store, and our customers, so I approve ordering them.
Pretty quickly we realized that the extra-large bottom half jutted out in such a way, it wasn’t easily seen by the driver, and shoppers were running into shelves, equipment, and ankles! We thought that as shoppers got used to them it would get better. Dave encouraged us to be patient as shoppers learnt how to accommodate that ‘big toe’ sticking out in front. We even wrote about them back in August of 2021, explaining why we chose them and encouraging your patience. Unfortunately, many of us never did learn to love them. The small, rusty grey carts returned (parked outside) for those of us (count me in) who much preferred the smaller footprint. Now we had carts in three sizes: small, medium, and large, but not the space to park all of them out of the weather. Many customers opted for the dry big toe carts, yet never seemed to get the hang of navigating them through our small aisles. And frankly the carts were running into our equipment, shelves, and ankles so often that we were looking for creative ways to protect our equipment from ongoing damage. After a particularly brutal pre-Thanksgiving shopping day, I finally caved and asked Dave to find us some different carts that might fit us better. He did, and they are finally here—yay!
By now you might be wondering where cooperation comes into this story. Having ordered 30 new carts, we now had to address the fate of those big toe carts. Really, they were just too new and useful (and expensive) to send to them to the recycling center, so I asked all the Food Co-ops’ in our region if anyone wanted them. Central Co-op (Tacoma, and Seattle) jumped on the offer to give them a new home. Dilemma solved!
Finally, the day arrived: new carts were unpacked, old carts were set aside and staff at Central Co-op jumped into action, drove over here, and took them back to Seattle. Staff at that store are super excited for this gift, and we’re super excited that our big toe carts have at last found their place. Check out the pics of Sam, Store Support Coordinator celebrating their arrival and even doing a little happy dance.
In cooperation, Kenna