My complaint:
I have autism and got headache, earache and felt sick after shopping at Giant due to sensory sensitivity overload from using a cart because they took away baskets. I really only shop with baskets as pushing a whole cart around is too much for me. It was hurting my arms too from the wheel vibrations and the cart was just too loud in my ear with the source of sound being too close to me. I have a pre-existing ear injury and shopping for food now is re-aggravating this injury if I use one of their loud unmaintained carts. I’m going to need earplugs or other ear protection just to go food shopping now as the carts are too loud. I tried a few carts and had the same problem.
There is no good reason to take away the baskets and it provided a way for me to shop with my disability and sensory issues more easily. With continually soaring food costs exponentially beyond rate of inflation, filling a cart is impossible anyways and I’m now forced to push a whole cart around to buy the very few things I can still afford.
I will not be going back to Giant, or buy more than I can carry in my hands from now on until another solution is available. This has tarnished my trust of Giant as they seem so separated from the needs of some of their shoppers now. I think this should be a breach in ADA compliance to force everyone to use a cart and should be illegal. I understand carts could be helpful to some with disabilities, but in my case, it is very harmful to me. We should have a choice on how we shop, and this company has removed the choice for us.
I have an intuition they will take away providing shopping bags next because they are copying Wegmans with the removal of baskets. This would be terrible as well as with ADHDAutism I often forget to bring my own bags and would be forced to spend more than I can afford to buy their expensive bags. I’m not sure if bags would be covered under SNAP benefits either. I really hope they don’t copy Wegmans which I can no longer shop at because of the removal of shopping bags. Wegmans was forced to bring back their baskets to shop with in the local stores when they tried what Giant is now doing. People can’t afford the food right now and they want to start charging us for bags too. This is unacceptable and unsustainable for some customers. Grocery shopping is nothing short of a nightmare now for me based on flagrant display of corporate greed.
Suggested solution:
Bring baskets back to all their stores. They even did this in one of their tiny stores, and couldn't even find a small basket cart (that I used that made so much noise in their other store) so would have to use a large shopping cart that's even worse and more difficult to maneuver. Pushing a large cart around in there I'd be bumping into and knocking things over. Their large carts barely fit in that store, but they still took away baskets. Their new manager needs a slap on the wrist for aggressively making things worse for customers.
