SULLIVAN COUNTY, NY – There’s something new in the ShopRite Supermarkets in Monticello and Liberty. Called Caper Carts, they are interactive and designed to make the shopping experience easier and quicker for shoppers.

According to Karen O’Shea, a spokesperson for ShopRite, “The carts provide shoppers with another convenient way to shop, helping them track their spending in real time, access savings and complete checkout more efficiently.”

The Caper Carts are easy to use, in this reporter’s experience. This is how they work:

Once a shopper has selected a cart from the line of carts at the charging station outside and clicks on the bar in front that says “Begin Shopping,” the tablet’s screen lights up. Shoppers simply need to place each item they want to purchase into the Caper Cart, which is equipped with both a bar code reader and a scale. The cart will automatically read the item’s bar code. A picture and the cost of each item will appear on the screen on the front of the cart.

There is a yellow bar behind the handle with a camera for shoppers who are Price Plus Club members to hold their cards in front of in order to receive ShopRite benefits and discounts. The yellow bar will turn to green once the card has been read.

A screen will pop up on the front of the tablet showing the items that are on sale that day, helping shoppers move through the store.

For items that need to be weighed, such as a bunch of bananas, the Caper Cart’s built-in scale will weigh it and indicate its total cost, adding it to the total cost of the other items already in the cart. The shopper only needs to scan through the tablet, go to the produce section, click on the screen that shows the various produce items and then click on the picture of a banana.

Shane Cruz, who is director of weights and measures for the Sullivan County Department of Public Works and is responsible for calibrating the Caper Carts to ensure that they are working properly, explained that every cart is equipped with an 80-pound scale. “If you have a cart with multiple products already on it, the scale has a means of clearing itself,” he said. That means that the bananas you put into the cart will be the only item the scale weighs.

Should the shopper decide not to buy an item already in the cart, they can just take it out and the Caper Cart will remove the cost of the item from the total.
When the shopper is ready to check out, they take the cart to the self-checkout station. There is a checkout button on each cart. Pressing it will make a barcode appear, which the shopper will scan into the self-checkout station and pay the bill.

Staff in both stores have been trained in how the Caper Carts work and are ready to instruct shoppers if they need help. Regular shopping carts are still available to those shoppers who would prefer them, as are traditional checkout lanes and self-checkout stations. “Caper Carts simply provide shoppers with another shopping and checkout option,” O’Shea said.