Why Don’t People Return Their Shopping Carts? A (Somewhat) Scientific Investigation

Behavioral Scientist ^ | 19 Nov, 2025 | Hannah B. Waldfogel

[No name given]

Exactly.

[Bulwyf]

I have seen it too and saved mine in a nick of time once. It wasn’t me, I always return it. It’s the normal and mannered thing to do.

[Presbyterian Reporter]

Make the shoppers rent the cart for 25 cents.

ALDI does that and there are no stray carts in the ALDI parking lot.

It does not take a DEI Psychology Professor to solve the problem.

[johnnygeneric]

Wait a second. This article is asking the wrong question.

I never return the cart to the STORE. Practically all grocery stores have the various corrals scattered across the parking lot so you DON’T have to return them to the store. The exception is Aldi. This is a big difference

Sure, it’s every now and then a pain when someone doesn’t use the corrals. But would I do a video on it or write an exposition on it?? NO!!!

Talk about hyper anal.

[shotgun]

I gave up long ago trying to find close up parking spot at Costco and now look for 1 next to a cart corral.

[Dr. Sivana]

I have heard the “job creation”excuse. In Phoenix, high correlation between cart abandonment and being Mexican. Compare the Food City lot with Basha or Safeway.

[GaltAdonis]

Extreme laziness.

[fso301]

My observation over the years has been that the lower the socio-economic class of customers, the higher the rate of unreturned carts.

The customers do not comprehend that unreturned carts = higher prices to them due to increased costs to the store of paying staff to continually have to round up and bus carts.

[gundog]

If I’m on my way in, I’ll often intercept someone returning a cart, and take it inside.

[BobL]

I like the idea of giving the Working Class exercise, and jobs.

[IrishPennant]

The shopping cart is a great watermark of personality to me - like making the bed in the morning. I actually included the below in a chapter of one of my self-help books:

CHAPTER TEN: WHEN IT’S ONLY YOUR SOUL WATCHING
The true test of a soul’s character is what he or she does when no one’s looking. Do you always do the right thing when it’s just you, knowing you won’t get any credit for your good behavior?

Not too long ago, a personality model built around a simple shopping cart began circulating through social media. The short, written piece was titled, “The Shopping Cart Theory.” In this theory, the anonymous author posited that returning or not returning the cart when done shopping was the ultimate test of good versus bad moral character. You be the judge.

The Shopping Cart Theory
To return the shopping cart is an easy, convenient task, and one which we all recognize as the correct, appropriate thing to do. To return the shopping cart is objectively right. There are no situations other than dire emergencies in which a person is not able to return their cart. Simultaneously, it is not illegal to abandon your shopping cart. Therefore, the shopping cart presents itself as the apex example of whether a person will do what is right without being forced to do it. No one will punish you for not returning the shopping cart. No one will fine you or kill you for not returning the shopping cart. You gain nothing by returning the shopping cart. You must return the shopping cart out of the goodness of your own heart. You must return the shopping cart because it is the right thing to do. Because it is correct. A person who is unable to do this is no better than anyone who can only be made to do what is right by threatening them with a law and the force that stands behind it. The shopping cart is what determines whether a person is a good or bad member of society.

--------------------------------

While the end of the theory gets a little heavy, there’s value in the overall concept. When no one’s looking and no one but you can judge your good or bad deeds, what do you do?

Well, return the cart.

There’s absolutely nothing better than doing the right thing, especially when it’s only your soul watching.

[Big Red Badger]

Being in Excruciating Pain
One may Not Properly return
A shopping cart.
.

[metmom]

Because they’re lazy and inconsiderate.

[BradyLS]

Where I shop, cart returns have two aisles: one for long carts and the other for short carts. Of course, the aisles aren’t labeled. But that’s okay because the first cart returned to either empty aisle determines the sorting for subsequent returns.

Naturally, if they are returned at all, both aisles fill with an intermingling of both kinds.

[Chengdu54]

Back in the day, nobody returned their shopping carts. The norm of returning carts emerged in the 1980s.
Today, if there’s ample space in the parking lot, I leave it near my car.

[Big Red Badger]

That Too.

[gundog]

Add D. U. M. B. I’ve seen people let go of full carts, on a slope, and be utterly shocked when it rolled away. And the only reason one woman even noticed it rolled away was the noise it made when it hit my truck.

[madison10]

I usually take them back. Exceptions are when the store makes it difficult for a cane user to do so.

[Jamestown1630]

Eating clockwise is...weird.

[Gman]

My father always said that people who did not return shopping carts were products of bad breeding. I do like the Aldi solution.