Target’s attempt to reinvent the shopping experience appears to be backfiring — literally.
The retail giant, already bruised by consumer backlash and slipping loyalty in recent years, is facing a fresh wave of criticism after customers and employees alike blasted the company’s brand-new shopping carts as clunky, poorly designed, and seemingly incapable of surviving basic day-to-day use.
For a company trying desperately to win back shoppers, critics say this latest rollout may have completely missed the mark.
Target recently unveiled plans to introduce roughly 50,000 redesigned shopping carts at stores across America over the next several years, touting the new models as sturdier, smoother, and more user-friendly than their predecessors.
But if early reactions are any indication, shoppers are not impressed.
Instead of excitement, the rollout has triggered a barrage of complaints online, with customers calling the carts “pieces of garbage,” saying they’re already breaking apart, difficult to maneuver, and oddly impractical for families.
One frustrated shopper took to Reddit to vent after their local store received the new fleet.
“Any other stores get new shopping carts recently?” the customer wrote. “The ones my store just got are pieces of garbage that are falling apart. Day one we were finding pieces of them on the floor and in the parking lot.”
Not exactly the glowing endorsement Target likely hoped for.
The criticism comes at an awkward time for the retail chain, which has spent years battling consumer frustration over everything from inflation-driven price hikes to controversial corporate activism.
Many conservative shoppers never returned after Target leaned heavily into divisive culture-war politics, including its much-publicized Pride Month merchandise — particularly the infamous “tuck-friendly” apparel that ignited nationwide outrage and boycotts.
Later attempts to quietly scale back diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) policies angered progressives while failing to fully win back skeptical conservatives, leaving the retailer trapped in a no-man’s-land between competing customer bases.
Now, even shopping carts are becoming a headache.
Target executives framed the redesign as part of a broader multibillion-dollar strategy aimed at improving the customer experience and revitalizing the brand.
“At Target, we’re continually investing to elevate the guest experience,” company representatives said in a statement, explaining the carts were developed with consumer research in mind and designed to improve function, style, and convenience.
On paper, the upgrades sound appealing.
The new carts include larger drink holders capable of fitting everything from Starbucks cups to oversized Stanley tumblers. Child seats were redesigned to prevent kids from climbing out unexpectedly. Steering was supposedly improved for easier navigation through crowded aisles.
Reality, however, seems to be telling a different story.
Customers say the carts are harder to push and strangely difficult to control.
“Every cart attendant says they are harder to push,” one shopper complained online, adding that the child seating area is comically undersized.
“Like a chunky 3-year-old probably wouldn’t fit,” the commenter joked.
Even Target employees are reportedly sounding the alarm.
Anonymous workers posting online claim the carts don’t properly function with store cart-pushing equipment — a major operational problem for workers tasked with collecting dozens of carts from sprawling parking lots.
“The new carts do NOT WORK with the cart pusher,” one alleged employee wrote. “When you try to push them with the machine it just goes straight and won’t steer.”
The explanation, according to workers, boils down to flawed engineering.
Employees claim that when the carts are lined up together, the rear wheels lift off the ground, leaving only the front caster wheels engaged — causing the carts to slide unpredictably and become nearly impossible to steer.
“Even by hand they wander all over,” one worker wrote, lamenting the loss of the old models that reportedly worked far better.
For many observers, the fiasco feels symbolic of a larger problem inside corporate America: executives spending millions redesigning things consumers weren’t asking to change while overlooking the basics that made them work in the first place.
At a time when families are tightening budgets and demanding better value, Target may be learning a difficult lesson — flashy redesigns mean very little if they simply make everyday life harder.
