'Majority' of Target Stores to Offer Shopping Carts for Customers With Special Needs
Target is making a nationwide push to put carts for customers with special needs in more of its stores.
Last February, the company teamed up with Caroline’s Cart to give customers with special needs a better shopping experience. Caroline’s Carts feature large bucket seats and high handles, designed to help parents and caregivers who are shopping with older kids or adults with special needs.
On Thursday, Target shared the news on its blog:
Beginning March 19, the vast majority of our stores (with the exception of a handful of our smallest stores where we don’t have full-size carts) will have at least one Caroline’s Cart, and many will have more, depending on their guests’ needs.
A Target employee with a child with special needs suggested the partnership to store operations, and since then a number of parents have given their feedback. Brianne Fuller shared the post below of her son with the Love What Matters Facebook page and wrote, “It made our evening shopping trip a breeze. . . and my son LOVES it! Please consider getting one for all of your stores, thank you!”
“Shout out to the team at your Brighton, MI Target store for ordering a Caroline's Cart. It made our evening shopping… Posted by Love What Matters on Sunday, January 24, 2016
Another shopper, Adam Standiford, shared an image of the cart and explained how much his family appreciated it when shopping with their daughter Savannah, a 6-year-old with special needs. “This simple cart literally will change how we can shop, not having to worry as to how we are going to get her into a store,” Standiford wrote on Target’s Facebook page. “Every retailer in the country should follow suit!”
Dear Target,I can't express enough how happy my wife was to see this at our local Target today. We have a 6year old…
Posted by Adam Standiford on Monday, November 9, 2015
“Caroline’s Cart can be a game-changer for families, and we’re excited to offer this for our guests across the country,” Juan Galarraga, senior vice president of Target store operations said in a statement.
Drew Ann Long founded Caroline’s Cart after realizing her daughter Caroline, who has Rett syndrome, would outgrow a regular shopping cart. Long and her husband David founded Parent Solution Group, LLC. in 2008, and partnered with Technibuilt to manufacture the carts.