Target shopping cart upgrade for one small feature ends up stirring customer revolt: Pieces of garbage

Ticked-off Target customers claim its new carts totally miss the bullseye. Fire and brimstone are befalling the big-box store yet again as incensed shoppers say its 50,000 newfangled carts are “pieces of garbage” that are “falling apart.”Sounds like hell on wheels. Designed to be beefier, easier-to-steer replacements for older models, Target’s fresh flock of carriages — poised to roll out in its nearly 2,000 US locations over the next few years — come as part of a multibillion-dollar attempt to win back frustrated customers. Once-loyal patrons boycotted the retailer after it announced plans to roll back DEI policies in March 2025, and the chain also caught flak for introducing “tuck-friendly” apparel in celebration of Pride Month, triggering a massive dip in sales.The upgraded carts, marking Target’s first nationwide all-plastic design, were meant to act as a lure, wheeling the masses back down store aisles with sleeker, smoother turns at every corner.With improved drink receptacles, capable of holding either a Starbucks cup or a Stanley tumbler, plus revamped child seats that prohibit kiddos from unexpectedly escaping, the new carryalls were expected to be a hit. Instead, they’re just garnering hate.  “Any others stores get new shopping carts recently? The ones my store just got are pieces of garbage that are falling apart,” griped a Target regular on Reddit.

“Day one we were finding pieces of them on the floor and in the parking lot.All the same piece that’s kind of integral to the cart.

““Every cart attendant says they are harder to push,” the continued, in part.“And the little child seat in them is L.I.T.T.L.E.

Like a chunky 3 year old probably wouldn’t fit.”“New shopping carts? That’s your plan?” tweeted an irked X user, who expressed lingering distain over Target’s DEI policy reversal.“F- -k you.

I’ll never shop there again.”Irritated Target staffers, too, are weighing in — anonymously, ...