Maintaining your retail or grocery store and its assets requires a multi-faceted approach. You must hire personnel to handle daily maintenance tasks, such as cleaning bathrooms and floors, dusting surfaces, restocking supplies, mopping up spills, etc. Additionally, you must invest in more rigorous services on a less frequent basis, like floor waxing, deep cleaning, and painting (both interior and exterior). Covering all of these bases helps ensure that your business remains safe and welcoming for all of your customers and employees. 

That said, there is more to protecting your assets than simply focusing on routine maintenance. While proper maintenance reduces the need for repairs, things still break from time to time, and you must be prepared to handle this as well. When this happens, you’re faced with a decision to throw the broken item away and start over, or invest your resources in repairing it. Shopping carts, for instance, are extremely useful and valuable assets, allowing customers to grab more items and spend more time in your store. If one of your carts gets damaged, should you bother repairing it? And is repair even possible?

As you might imagine, there are no simple answers to these questions. However, careful consideration of a few key factors can help you decide whether it’s worth it to repair your carts. Let’s discuss them.

What to Know About Shopping Cart Repair

What’s the Damage?

Whenever something breaks or gets damaged, you must first try to determine how it occurred and how severe it is. Getting to the root of the problem can help you prevent such a thing from happening again, saving you a lot of time and money down the road. For example, you may have the best shopping carts money can buy, but if they’re improperly handled or stored, or your parking lot is full of holes and hazards, don’t expect your carts to last very long.

Sometimes, though, a freak accident is to blame, or gradual wear and tear takes its toll on your carts. Whatever the case may be, you need to carefully examine the object to see where and how bad the damage is. If the problem is isolated and minor, such as a missing wheel or dented handle, you can most likely order the parts you need from the manufacturer and repair the cart yourself. If, however, the damage is severe and structural, your only option may be to ship the cart back to the manufacturer or repair specialist, or get rid of the cart entirely.

Budget and Cost: Go by the Numbers

No business owner with a sound mind wants to throw away their assets. Eating costs might well be a feature of doing business, but it’s not fun. That being said, sometimes cutting your losses makes more financial sense than investing in repairs. Other times, the opposite is true. The most fiscally responsible solution depends on your business’ particular circumstances, such as its budget, priorities, resources, and more. 

When deciding whether to repair your shopping carts or just buy a fleet of new shopping carts instead, crunch the numbers. What does it cost to order new cart parts? How about the cost and/or time it takes to install these parts? What is the cost of shipping a single cart or several to the manufacturer and having them refurbished and shipped back to your store? Can you afford to be without a handful of your carts while they’re getting fixed? 

Once you have this information, ask yourself if it’s cheaper or more costly to order some new carts and trash the old ones.

One Cart or the Whole Fleet?

The practicality of shopping cart repair also depends on how many of your carts are damaged. If it’s just one or two, you may still have plenty of carts to offer your customers. In this case, repairs can often wait, if they’re necessary at all. However, several of your carts might need fixing, especially if they’re past their prime. In this situation, you have to act quickly, otherwise you might not have a viable supply of functional carts for your customers.

If your store contains a fleet of very old shopping carts, there’s a good chance that most of them, if not all of them, require some kind of repair. Depending on just how old, outdated, and beat up they are, they might be beyond saving. Even if you could repair every single one of them, they would still feel out of place in a modern setting. In fact, doing away with the old and investing in a brand new fleet of carts may reinvigorate your brand, store, and customer base, making it a sound investment.

Who’s Fixing It?

While minor cart repairs are often straightforward, larger repairs and those for unique shopping carts may require specialized knowledge and equipment. Therefore, you need to know of a reliable shopping cart repair provider when something goes wrong. This could be the manufacturer itself or a third-party company. Whatever the case, make sure you have a trustworthy team you can turn to so you don’t waste time or money on a shoddy job. Just as importantly, if and when it’s time to invest in new shopping carts, work with a shopping cart manufacturer that offers a range of carts and baskets for your needs, from heavy duty shopping carts to custom baskets, specialty carts, and more.

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