Customer Shopping and Loading: Carts,Wagons, and Bins
Now, for customer shopping carts and carrying devices. There are a lot of them to choose in the marketplace. We are looking for:
Models that are time tested
(Of course, if we are able to pick up other used carts for a reasonable price, we will do that. We just do not want a bunch of off brand stuff that we have to fool with)
Carts that are extremely durable and can hold heavy loads
Easily maintained by our staff
Parts that are readily available
Larger wheels that can move compacted gravel as well as hard surfaces
Rust resistant
Unibody construction with few connection points
Nest easily into one another
We have chosen Metcart nursery shopping carts. For garden stores that have hard surfaces or compacted gravel, this cart is the one to purchase. It has a simple design with few connections that could come loose. It is extremely strong and durable, suited for the rough and tumble wear shopping carts get in our industry. 
Some store owners have galvanized the steel frame, (for rust resistance) which is a smart idea. Although pricey to do, this coating treatment will give you years of service. The wheels are large, maneuver and nest nicely. They can be maintained by the staff and the parts are readily available.
The best part about these metcarts is that they can hold a lot of heavy weight without bending or breaking.
We have purchased an initial fifty carts for each of our stores. We see no reason to buy any other brand of shopping cart.
http://www.metcart.com/
“If a person cannot walk around our store, they are not much of a gardener and we are not interested in them as our customer.”
Owner of a large garden store
Indiana
We have to repeat this incredible statement by the owner of one of the largest regional garden centers in the United States. No wonder the big box stores are gobbling up the garden business!
The availability of personal transporting equipment in any modern retail store is an absolute necessity. It is especially true with large garden stores where there is a lot of area to cover in sometimes adverse weather conditions.
These devices are not just for the permanently disabled, far from it. The explosion of the baby boomers has spawn hundreds of thousands of knee and hip replacements who require temporary assistance. Even a simple sprain can limit the finest world class athlete.
We know this at green garden gates and we are committed to assisting these gardeners with their springtime activities. Each store has at least one battery operated mobile cart and one wheelchair for our customers convenience. They are all fitted with a basket for the ease of shopping. And of course, our golf carts are available to shuttle these customers for further assistance.
We have purchased these devices from Martcart, a world leader in customer transporting equipment
Martcart.com
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Many garden stores do not have all the fancy walkways with concrete or asphalt. Most of the place may be gravel or dirt. Shopping carts just do not work for an all around use in that business.
We still believe that the old Radio Flyer red wagons are the best for the money. ( you might be able to make a deal with your local hardware man for a good discount on a bunch of these wagons) They are inexpensive, standardized, and easily maintained. Buy the one that has been around for years, #18 Classic Red Wagon, with all metal parts that are easy for the staff to repair.
There is something nostalgic about a Radio Flyer. Women seem to like pulling them as they are not intimidating and filling up a wagon seems more economical for the customer rather than a big shopping cart. If the kids want to pull a wagon too, Radio Flyer makes a small version of this classic model for them.
There are lots of beefy looking steel wagons out there for garden stores, but frankly, they do not hold much more than a Radio Flyer, they are harder for a woman to maneuver and they are much more money over these old standbys. Some garden store owners, who want the wagons a different color than red, have the bodies powder coated. (never paint the wagons. They will never hold up).
Over time, the carrying body of these Radio Flyers will start to bend and bow down because of all the weight of the plants and products. We solved that problem. In the diagram, you see that we had made short pieces of iron angle iron with pre-drilled holes. We attach the iron to the bottom of the carrying body and bolt to the body with big washers. It will prevent the body from bending and the Radio Flyer is able to carry much more weight without damage.
radioflyer.com
Bins
Some of you will remember wooden apple box bins in the fruit stand and the garden store business. They had a number of uses, display, carrying, and holding bare root plants such as strawberry bundles and cane berries. This plastic box is a great improvement on this bin. 
They are durable, they snap together easily and last forever if you take care of them.
We have purchased 20 plastic bins for each store and we continue to be on the lookout to purchase wooden apple boxes if they are available.
directindustry.com
We have found that Bins and Crates are an important display feature in the retail garden center industry. They give the impression of rapid movement of plants and products, a timed event that will draw shoppers to those displays. Don't take our word for it, look at the newly remodeled Wal-Mart produce areas of their stores!
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Customer Carrying and Loading Equipment
Some garden store owners resist having these little baskets around. They want their customers to use a shopping cart all the time so they can tempt them into loading it up. That thinking is a bit silly. Especially in this time of economizing, some customers just want a few plants. We have placed a number of these basket stacks in our stores.
Shopping bags
In keeping with our “green” commitment and to economize, we are exclusively using 100% biodegradable plastic bags for carryout in our stores. They break down in compost with no residue in 10-14 days. We use no paper bags. They just stay in landfills forever and they are so darn expensive! We have partnered with a major plant grower to print their logo on the bags, easing the cost for us.
brenmarco.com
Customer Carryout Trays
Carry out trays have evolved in the industry. Years ago, most garden store owners would rely on “beer flats”, those cardboard boxes cut down to hold a case of beer cans in the stores. It was not uncommon to see an entire years supply of collected cardboard beer flats stacked high in the garage of a garden store owner. These beer flats had one destination after holding the beer. That trip was straight into the local dump. Garden stores provided a re-use for the flats avoiding the need to make more cardboard and giving these beer flats just one more use before the trip to the landfill or the compactor.
The most common carry-out tray is still made of cardboard, but it is now manufactured for carrying plants out of a garden store. The sides and ends of the flat panels are folded and stapled. The fancy version of these are “snap trays”, with the sides and ends snapping into pre-punched holes. Like all cardboard products, the trays are moderately pricy and very few or none of the trays get back to the garden store for re-use. They are just tossed in the landfill. We, at green garden gates, do not purchase cardboard carry out trays for our stores. We use a standard plastic grower flat for our carryout tray in all of our stores
It is our goal that after the first two seasons in each store, we will never purchase another new carrying tray/flat in the lifetime of that store. We believe that there are enough plastic flats/trays thrown away in each community every spring to fill up a five bedroom house!
Nick Hudson came to the garden store industry just a few years after the wooden flats. Each grower had the name of his company painted on the end of the little boxes. The flowers were grown directly in the flat, no inserts or cell packs, Just dirt and plants. When the gardener wanted a half a dozen petunia plants, the shopkeeper took a trowel and carefully cut out six of them from the box, rolled each petunia plant in newspaper, handed it to the customer and that was it.
The wooden boxes were used again and again over many years. Soon, the plastic manufacturers got into the act with a plastic growing tray, which were light and cheap. The wooden flats were thrown out and in came the cases of plastic trays. Even today, with all the concern for re-cycling and re-using The plastic trays are used mostly just once and tossed into the landfill. Maybe it is time to bring out the wooden flats again!
We set up recycling bins to collect these trays, clean them and rotate them back into the checkout areas for carryout. As a customer incentive, we donate one cent for each usable standard flat/tray returned and donate those proceeds to a local food bank. We have alerted the local city landfills and the plastic recyclers that we will pay one cent for these standard useable trays/flats We save serious money in the overall company, re-using plastic flats/trays as well as signal to the community of our commitment to the environment.
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However, We go much farther than this. During the season, we gather, store and use all clean cardboard boxes or cardboard pallet liners as trunk mats. They are durable and fit nicely into vehicles. Because of their weight, they work much better than plastic and don't blow in the wind when placing the mat.
Your carry outs can go through a lot of plastic bed liners. Use all available cardboard and don’t fill up your dumpsters with this very usable material.
trunkmat.com
