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Free to Shop: TARGET’S Adoption of Caroline’s Carts Heralds a New Era in Inclusion

September 7, 2016

By Joan Leotta

A Caroline Cart from TargetBefore Caroline’s Carts, a trip to the grocery store or a quick dash to pick up household or clothing items could be a logistical nightmare for families with a special needs child or an adult family member who cannot be left alone. By making it possible for these families to enjoy one more bit of normalcy in their lives, Drew Ann Long, inventor of  Caroline’s Cart and the mother of a child with Rett Syndrome, has now changed the dynamic of that everyday experience.

Since its introduction to grocery stores in 2012, Caroline’s Cart has become a nationwide phenomenon. Target Corporation is the first national retailer store to offer this convenience to its customers, thus extending the “normal” shopping experience beyond groceries to electronics, home goods, housewares, hardware, clothing, and other categories. Each and every Target store makes at least one Caroline’s Cart available to much positive reception. Target spokesperson Kristy Welker comments, “We’re thrilled that Caroline’s Cart has made shopping easier for guests and we appreciate that our guests share photos of their shopping experience on their social channels. We’ll continue to put our guests at the center of everything we do to improve the shopping experience.”

How and Why Did Target Adopt These Carts?

Welker explains, “a former Target team member with a special needs child informed Target’s Store Operations team about Caroline’s Cart”. So, it was actually word of mouth that first stimulated Target’s interest in Drew Ann Long’s invention. Welker continues, “Additionally, some guests had notified our Guest Relations team about the carts. These suggestions prompted us to explore adding Caroline’s Carts to Target stores to positively impact guests’ shopping experience.”

The initial test drive, which took place in February 2015, was an immediate success. Welker shared that “after receiving positive guest reaction, we decided to add the carts to nearly all Target stores by March 19, 2016.” Each of the 1,780 Target stores has at least one Caroline’s Cart available. More can be added as individual stores anticipate customer needs.”

Development of the Cart

Drew Ann Long, developer and inventor of Caroline’s Carts, is the stay-at-home mother of Caroline, her special needs daughter, A resident of Alabaster, Alabama, Long first realized the need for these carts eight years ago when Caroline turned seven and as Long says, “was becoming too large for supermarket carts.”. What Long foresaw was not pleasant for her or her daughter: She says, “Imagine not being able to take your child to the grocery store.” Rather than surrender that basic yet meaningful activity, Long decided to make the world better for her family and for families like hers. Now imagine something that will allow you to continue to take your child with you. Such experiences, shopping at the grocery, in stores like Target, give families a sense of normalcy, they allow a family that has a child with a mobility disability or someone who has a family member with Alzheimer’s or even Autism to have the same typical shopping experience as that of their neighbors.”

Long notes that the first cart shipment, delivered to a local mom and pop grocery store, came on October 9, 2012 – Caroline’s birthday. The initial enthusiastic feedback from the store owners proved that Caroline’s Carts were an effective, pragmatic answer to a widespread challenge. Buoyed by this success, Long approached Technibilt, one of the nation’s largest grocery cart manufacturers.

Technibilt spokesperson Alice Little recalls that, “once Drew Ann Long met with us, she knew she wanted to partner with us and there was no stopping her. She had the vision and her presence in this project has been huge from the beginning until the present! Drew Ann helped to convince us that the need was there and that once the product was available that families with special needs older children and adults would jump in with both feet. Once the carts were tested and the first carts showed up in the stores, these families sitting quietly with their need came out of the woodwork.”

To generate interest in Caroline’s Cart throughout communities and around the country, Long met with local disability organizations while Technibilt spread the word among its client list. In fact, as Little notes, “Several groups have contacted us to endorse the cart. The largest group was Easter Seals. We were the very first product to bear the Easter Seal Logo. Caroline’s Carts also received the da Vinci Awards®, a prestigious, international forum celebrating the most innovative developments and research in all fields of assistive and adaptive technology.

Seeking to expand the carts’ availability, Technibilt has reached out to every major retailer in the U.S. and Canada as well as many smaller chains and local business operations. Little explains that while the manufacturer has “received a wonderful response to the product, Technibilt sales is not the hero in this story. The real heroes are all of the families who, once they heard about the product and saw it in use, contacted their own local stores and asked. ‘Can we get a Caroline’s Cart in our store?’ The key is that it is their store, where they shop… they will be faithful shoppers in their stores! They got the word out in their hometowns as well as on their social media accounts.”

The Cart’s Success

According to Technibilt, the company receives “100’s” of emails per day from cart users… they are wonderful emails… they tell their story to us and how the cart has changed their lives. We love these emails and answer every single one of them!”

Target’s Welker says that company has experienced the same enthusiastic gratitude. “The feedback that we’ve been hearing is overwhelmingly positive. Guests appreciate the ease that the carts offer.”

Getting Carts into More Stores

The ultimate goal of any business is economic viability. Technibilt’s Little says, “We knew Caroline’s Cart would sell. We knew if we built it and enlisted Drew Ann Long to help us market the cart, it would be a success, that  Caroline’s Cart was going to be an award winning product.” She points out that the carts are also helpful for people with family members who other conditions that do not allow them to simply walk alongside another shopper and who also cannot operate the motorized carts.

Caroline’s Carts can be found in every state except Hawaii  at Kroger, Publix, Hannaford, Food Lion, Whole Foods, Wegman’s and more. Having already expanded to Canada, Technibilt anticipates also debuting the product in Germany, Russia, Egypt, Spain, the United Kingdom and Australia. www.carolinescart.com offers a list of store locations where the carts are currently available. With the excitement of this product expansion, it is important to note that not all companies who provide the carts have them in all of their stores.

Some grocery stores still do not carry the carts at all. Long encourages families to speak up: “If you do not see a cart in a store, ask about it. If the store has a fun cart (shaped like a truck or car for children to use), or an electric scooter, you can point out to the manager that Caroline’s Carts are for those who cannot drive the scooters. If they have made one kind of provision, then they should be willing to provide an equal opportunity shopping experience to the underserved market of families with persons with a disability who are still out there.”

The Cart’s Facebook page is a great place to follow the progress of this dynamic invention as it continues to impact the world of inclusion. This page is also be a resource for families seeking to build advocacy networks, encouraging an even wider range of stores to make the Cart available.

Target’s collaboration with Technibilt marks significant progress in the work toward full inclusion. As part of its overall commitment to providing a positive shopping experience for all of its guests, Target has created a high visibility opportunity for families to participate more fully in the everyday tasks that make their lives work. As Target reminds us, however, the real heroes in this story are the everyday consumers, like Drew Ann and Caroline. Not only the Carts, but also the people who are out and about using them, hint at an exciting new normal for all of us.

Filed Under: Profiles in Excellence Leave a Comment

Tags: inclusion, shopping, target

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CertifiKid logoCertifiKid: Special Deals for Special Needs Screenshot of video - click to viewA Virus Worth Catching
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CertifiKid: Special Deals for Special Needs

October 1, 2012

By Joan Leotta

CertifiKid logoBargains! They’re the clarion call of every shopper. The Internet has become an ideal platform for finding discounts on a multitude of goods and services. Although there were already many services offering deals and online coupons in the Washington DC metro area, Jamie Ratner, a Bethesda, Maryland mom and author of a popular blog on bargains for families, saw an unserved niche: She noticed that most deals offered on websites such as Groupon and Living Social were primarily aimed at young singles.

The idea for her website, www.certifikid.com, came to fruition when Ratner realized that she could make her wish for more coupons and services for families a reality. Her company was one of the first to provide deals on a variety of family-friendly items and services including amusement park visits, summer camps and more. And from the beginning, she also identified a more targeted grouping of families who might love coupons: those with special needs kids.

Jamie’s sister, a teacher of students with special needs, along with friend Sunday Stilwell, a popular DC/Baltimore area blogger, influenced Jamie’s decision to expand into this area. The disability deals are an option available in each city where CertifiKid has a presence. From the homepage, readers can find a “Special Deals for Special Needs” icon along the right-side column that leads to www.certifikid.com/special_needs.

What CertifiKid has to offer

CertifiKid works by offering subscriber families limited-time deals on local goods and adventures. The site aims to be, according to its “About” page, “an online playground for families to build relationships with each other and local businesses that will last beyond the initial transaction.” Once customers find and purchase a deal through the site, they can print out an exclusive coupon to be redeemed at the business. Other deals are also available at CertifiKid’s Facebook page and through Twitter. Families who refer others to CertifiKid.com receive referral credit through the site.

Ratner and her crew connect with their target market because they are the target market. Ratner, a mother of two living in a high-cost area, understood her market well—families with children, looking for a way to stretch their dollars and still enjoy activities together as a family. The site’s tagline, “Your playground for great family values,” emphasizes this search for family-fun activities at bargain prices.

Since its 2010 launch in DC, the coupon site already operates in six East-Coast cities. A May 2010 article in the Maryland Gazette quoted Ratner on the early progress of the company, indicating that the site garnered 1,200 subscribers and eight purchases on its first day alone. Speaking to SMG in July 2012, Lara DiPaola, CertifiKid Marketing Director, said that the company had 10,000 subscribers to the special needs portion of the site alone.

Why “Special Deals for Special Needs”?

CertifiKid is the first deal site to offer bargains focused on families of children with special needs. “’Every family deserves a deal’ is Jamie’s philosophy, so she immediately expanded into that direction,” says DiPaola. “When you go to that area of the site or when you click the ‘Special Deals for Special Needs’ logo on the site, you are prompted to sign up for a free account and then you will receive an email each time we have a new deal to offer.”

Bargains on the special needs area include general-interest items like amusement park tickets and moonbounce rentals but also feature deals such as 50% off for individual education plans (IEPs) and occupational therapy services and products designed specifically for special needs. While of course, many public school jurisdictions offer IEPs as a free service, the “for pay” IEP can be of help to a home schooling parent, those sending children to private schools that may not pay, and anyone wanting a second opinion on the public school IEP,

DiPaola explains, “What we want to achieve by creating the Special Deals for Special Needs site is more than simply bargains. We hope to achieve inclusion.

“So many people use that word when referring to this community,” she continues. “We want to make it a real, tangible thing. When Jamie founded the company it was because she didn’t see the needs of families being met. With Special Deals for Special Needs we are simply taking that and doing our best to be sure that all families can benefit from a great deal.”

She adds that sometimes the special needs portion of the site may not have offers as are available on the main sight. “The number of offers ebbs and flows. My advice is to check frequently. There is no charge to families to be a part of our community either on the site or in our active social media outlets.”

Expansion and honors

The CertifiKid program already offers deals in the Washington DC metro area, Baltimore, Pittsburgh, Philadelphia, Delaware, and Hampton Roads, Virginia. Says DiPaola, “We already consider ourselves national because we help introduce businesses all over the country to families in the cities we are in right now. We plan to expand, but we’ll do that slowly, taking time to focus on building the right team in each new market that is key for us.”

Media coverage and opportunities have been key to spreading the word about the site. CertifiKid was recently recognized as the “Best Deal Site for Parents” by Washingtonianmagazine. Their CEO was named one of the top 40 under 40 Business Leaders by the Washington Business Journal in 2011. Additionally, in August 2012, founder Ratner was a featured speaker at The Power Conference: Women Doing Business in the DC area.

DiPaola says that the company measures success not necessarily by numbers of subscribers but by connections made. “Every time we get an email or see a post on Facebook that says that a family used a deal and loved it, that is success,” she asserts. “It’s something you have to work to take care of every day.”

How do they approach that task? “We do things differently from most deal sites,” she says. “We don’t have call centers or huge marketing teams. We like to keep it local, employ other parents, and be a part of the community. When we’ve been able to do that in every city, everywhere—that will feel like success.”

 

Edited by Mary-Louise Piner.

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Tags: CertifiKid, families, shopping

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A Caroline Cart from TargetFree to Shop: TARGET’S Adoption of Caroline’s Carts Heralds a New Era in Inclusion
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Quick Facts

The disability market consists of 56M people, representing an annual disposable income of $544 billion.

The disability market is more than twice as large as the tween market (20M), and has almost 3X the disposable spending power ($180B).

According to the U.S. Census Bureau, of the 69.6 million families in the U.S., 20.3 million families have at least one member with a disability.

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