I don’t mean just returning your shopping cart to the cart area, but actually sliding it back in. At my grocery store, some people half ass stack it back in or don’t at all. This drives me nuts because when I come to return my cart I have to fix the mess before I can return mine. Plus, I don’t want the workers who collect the carts to do any more work than they already do.
I caught this one guy who was returning his cart and I had to wait until he was done. Instead of stacking his cart, he just left it there in front of the stack and I said, “C’mon man!” He was surprised and said, “Oh!” then immediately stacked his cart.


In Germany, everyone does it. Yes, I think it is common courtesy. It is a matter of basic respect to others.
It’s not like it’s difficult or a lot of effort. You specifying it against “just in the area” - maybe you have more space for carts, but if you already move it into the designated area, I don’t see that aligning it could be significantly more effort or time investment.
Ehm, yes, but in Germany you also put a Euro into the cart to release the chain, and need to return the cart to get it back.
Not so sure this would work here without that…
Real pros carry a thing to unlock the carts without a coin. A small metal piece on your key chain or wallet dies the trick. We still return the cart every time. This is just common sense.
Not everywhere anymore.
Some years ago they had a person going around collecting and storing the trolleys. Then they switched to the coin thing, sparing staff.
Now I experience some already dropping that too. Just take and put it back in.
If I remember correctly, the coin thing was dropped during covid for some reason.
I’ve seen a lot of supermarkets recently where the mechanism is still there but all the carts are unlocked, so that you don’t need to insert a coin anymore. At least where I live this works just as well and people return their carts into the stack. We were probably conditioned to do it during the last years when the coin was still necessary, and now it just sticks.
I remember that a lot of supermarkets did that during the pandemic.
The stores also usually provide you with plastic coins to use instead of euros, so…