Shopping

[pne]

I went for a little post-Christmas shopping to day, to see whether they had any interesting Christmas sweets on sale. Boy, was it full! I suppose I committed the triple sin of (a) going on a Saturday around noon, (b) shortly after Christmas and (c) on the first day that fireworks can legally be sold around here.

And when I wanted to bring my shopping cart back, there was no other cart to attach it to, so I couldn't get my little plastic chip back. I was the first person this happened to (just before, an employee there had taken away the last shopping cart) and slowly, a queue of people with carts started to form. Unfortunately, nearly all had chips rather than coins in the carts, so people who wanted a cart were out of luck since they couldn't just give the person a €1 or 50¢ coin in exchange for the one in the cart. Finally, an employee came around with a little metal thing which would unlock the coin.

Comments

[sparkofcreation.livejournal.com]

They tried that system here about ten years or so ago ... now it's mostly not used, but there is *one* grocery store near my house that still uses it, and it drives me nuts for the same reason. There used to be little things in the corrals that plugged into the first cart, so even if there wasn't one already there, you could get your quarter or token back; but now they don't even have those, and many times I've just given up and lost the quarter.

For €1, though, I'd probably wait around. Which I guess is the point.

[pne.livejournal.com]

There used to be little things in the corrals that plugged into the first cart, so even if there wasn't one already there, you could get your quarter or token back;

Yup, I expected those, too (pretty much all other supermarkets have them). But the chains at the end were missing the vital little piece that plugs into the shopping carts.

For €1, though, I'd probably wait around.

Another problem was that not everyone had €1 pieces -- it used to be DM 1 nearly universally. Then when they switched to euros, most carts took either DM 1, €0.50 or €1 pieces, and a bunch of people still use mark pieces for their shopping carts (I used to do so for quite a while as well, out of nostalgia, but I can't find mine at the moment -- I think it's on my bedside table somewhere).

So even if you have a coin, you're not guaranteed it'll match what the previous "owner" put in it. Maybe that's part of what contributes to the rising use of tokens (which are still usually mark-sized rather than the same size as the €0.50 or €1 pieces, which are similar but not identical).

Re:

[sparkofcreation.livejournal.com]

Here they all take either a quarter, or a token that you could get free when they first started the system. (One per person ... I forget how they worked that!) The tokens are the same size as a quarter and are round and metallic but have a tab on one side to fit on a keychain.

How does it work with different-sized coins? I'd think that would be hard. Here the slots are only one size.

[pne.livejournal.com]

No idea how much they had to change. However, the coins are all much the same size -- the €1 coin is very slightly smaller than the DM 1 coin, and the €0.50 coin is slightly larger (but its value is a lot closer to DM 1).

So maybe they had to enlarge the round spaces just a little to accommodate €0.50 coins. I suppose they did it so that people wouldn't have to pay twice as much as they did previously, even if they do get the coin back usually.

Free tokens

[pne.livejournal.com]

I don't remember tokens having been free... actually, I think they're fairly new in Germany.

When I was young, I think everyone used mark coins, then slowly tokens started coming out; either metal (optionally with a hole for attaching to a keychain) or plastic (I have one of those). And all the ones I saw cost exactly DM 1. (I wonder what they sell for now -- €0.51, the equivalent, or maybe €0.50?)