Another example of how the world is built for men

[bluechameleon]

I have never used one before, but DS2 (13m) was asleep in the car and I needed to get a couple of bits in Tesco so I used one of the trolleys with the tray to attach the car seat to. I am pretty tall (about 5'9) and I struggled to lift the heavy seat high enough to get it on the tray. I can't see how a shorter-than-average woman would manage at all.

Considering at least half their customers are women, supermarkets are not designed with many women in mind.

Shelve are often too high, freezers too deep and as you say, to use some baby trolleys you have to be tall and strong.

I always had to get a regular trolley, put my baby in and wedge the food round them.

I'm 5'2". They were a bloody nightmare when the DC were small. I just rammed ahead and hoped people would get out of the way. Those trolleys you get that are low for people in wheelchairs would be better. Despite having 3DC and so spending a small fortune in the supermarket I never use the (far too) deep trollies either.

Yy to all of these. One of my supermarkets have older, super deep trollies cos they're too tight to update them and they just look, and are, so impractical seen beside the shallow trollies.

Whoops, line-thru fail

I always had to get a regular trolley, put my baby in and wedge the food round them.

Great minds..

I remember watching one of thevUndercover Boss type programmes on tv years ago (Back to the fłoor?) where the head of one of the big supermarkets went back to working in a couple of their shops.

This was maybe 25-35 years ago when there were lots of deep trolleys and handbaskets, very few of the shallow ones.

He was shocked by the number of customers who wanted a shallow trolley but when there weren’t any, took a hand basket instead. Their conventional reasoning was that they would take a deep trolley instead and thus be more likely to forget how much they had picked up and thus buy more, resulting in more profit. That people would pick up a hand basket just hadn’t entered their minds and seemed completely illogical to them.

The guy realised that their shortsightedness and determination to foist bigger trolleys in customers was actually backfiring and losing them sales as they were only buying a hand basket of stuff instead of a shallow trolly-load.

One of his first actions even while he was still there undercover was to ring up and order a load of shallow trolleys and get a decent study going to see if what he was seeing was true across the rest of their shops.

In the summing up bit at the end, turned out it was true and hence they (and most of the other chains) switched to having about half and half deep and shallow trolleys.

Thinking they should do that study again as they always run out of shallow trolleys first and you hear people complaining they have to have a deep trolley!

I'm 5'1".

When I met DH he joked my parents home was a 'hobbit hole' and everything was low down and awkward for him.

He never realised the issue until he met me and I started to point out what a different to my life my height was and how the world was built for his 6'2".

Supermarkets also deliberately put premium products at eye level to maximise sales. Given my eye level is considerably lower and I have difficulty reaching higher shelves this will be being used against me.

The worst supermarket set up is where there are shelves above the freezer section.

I will never ask anyone to reach for something. Its humiliating. Trolly gymnastics to get those extra inches can't be a good thing but it's preferable.

In Waitrose at Christmas they have an extra set of shelves the fit on top of the existing shelves for more stock.
Given that I can’t reach the top shelf on a normal day I have no idea how they expect me to reach it at Christmas.

I like climbing

The best shopping devices are the deep baskets that have wheels. You can manage your small child, because you have one hand free, and a decent amount of shopping simultaneously.

rosablue interesting!