A shopping cart’s main purpose is to help customers carry large hauls of goods throughout your store. As an added bonus, this convenience factor encourages shoppers to make larger purchases. Still, shopping carts can do more for your business than improve the customer experience and propping up your profits. Shopping carts are used day in and day out by countless customers, making them ideal vessels for boosting your brand.

Once you start looking for it, you’ll see that shopping cart advertising is quite common. Grocery stores and retailers might promote their own brand on their carts, or they might earn some additional cash by letting other businesses advertise on this mobile real estate. If you own or manage a retail or grocery store and you’re looking for ways to cement your brand in customers’ minds, using your carts for promotional purposes is a smart and cost-effective strategy. To create a successful cart advertising campaign, however, you must dig into the details. Here’s how to professionally promote your brand on your store’s plastic shopping carts.

How to Professionally Promote Your Brand on Your Store’s Plastic Shopping Carts

Choose the Right Color for Your Carts

If you’re trying to cultivate a more cohesive brand identity inside your store, matching the color of your shopping carts with the color scheme of your logo design is a great place to start. At the very least, all of your carts should feature the same coloration, so nothing looks aesthetically out of place. But going the extra mile and matching your carts’ colors to your brand establishes a more complete customer experience. Additionally, sticking with bold cart colors makes these assets more visible, making it easier for more customers to grab one and increase their purchases along the way. Such a small adjustment can benefit your brand and business in a big way.

Slap Your Name and Logo on Each Shopping Cart

Keeping your carts consistently colored is important, but it’s only the first step in promoting and reinforcing your store brand. Next, make sure your business’s name and logo are featured on each and every shopping cart. Because most plastic carts feature a lattice design, painting or stenciling on these letters and symbols isn’t the best strategy here. Shopping cart advertising frames facilitate this branding process by providing an impermeable plate that attaches to the cart (or is built into it) and serves as a canvas for your designs. While it’s true that most of your shoppers won’t need to be reminded of the name of the store they’re currently shopping in, marking all of your carts in this way further reinforces your brand and discourages cart theft which occurs far too often.

Keep Your Name and Logo Visible

Featuring your brand name on every one of your carts is only worthwhile if you know your customers will see it every time they’re in your store. In other words, font size, coloration, and placement all make a big difference. Most businesses opt to advertise their brand on the front and sides of their carts. While the customer operating the cart might not get the clearest visual of the name or logo this way, everyone else in front of them or at their sides will see it clearly.

Take Good Care of Your Carts

Regularly cleaning and tuning up your shopping carts is a good habit in its own right to protect your assets and maintain your reputation. But keeping your carts in great shape also has a bearing on your branding. For one thing, the name and logo you slap on your carts can wear down over time as they endure constant use and environmental threats – the better you care for your carts, the longer these advertisements will remain visible. Additionally, the condition of your carts reflects directly on your business. Carts that are dirty, squeaky, damaged, missing pieces, difficult to maneuver, etc., send the signal that their owner doesn’t take pride in their enterprise. Conversely, clean and highly functional carts tell customers that you don’t let anything slide when it comes to taking care of your operation. The better your carts, the stronger your brand.

Does Shopping Cart Advertising Work?

Before you implement the strategies outlined above, you’ll want to know whether or not cart promotion is even worth your while. While it can be difficult to track precisely how well cart advertising works, there’s no denying that it reaches a large audience. Countless people enter a grocery store at least once a week, and they’re all bound to glance at the branding attached to a store’s carts as they shop. On top of that, repetition is an effective branding strategy – the more often people see your name and logo, the more they’ll recognize your brand, even if only subconsciously. So, in short, shopping cart advertising does work, especially if you deploy the proper strategies mentioned in this article.

How Much Does It Cost to Advertise on Shopping Carts?

Grocery and retail store owners/managers don’t have to think too much about the cost of cart advertising as it’s often tied into the cost of shopping carts themselves (which is a necessary investment). Working with a shopping cart manufacturer that specializes in custom carts allows you to achieve the exact cart color and logo placement you desire from the very beginning – the price is built in, and no further action is required to make your carts the promotional powerhouses they were meant to be. Looking for the right cart manufacturer for your brand?

Good L Corporation delivers innovative shopping cart and basket solutions for retailers on a global scale. Good L Corp. can configure the right carryall strategy to boost your retail business, from a fleet of new custom carts to launch your store opening to replacement baskets that supplement your existing shop supply. Let’s get started! Contact us today for a no-pressure sales quote!