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If you’re visiting Aldi for the first time, one small detail outside the entrance can be surprisingly confusing: the shopping carts are locked together, and you usually need a quarter to release one.

At first glance, it can look like Aldi is charging customers to use a cart.

It isn’t.

The coin is simply a refundable deposit. Insert it into the cart, shop as usual, return the cart to the designated area, reconnect it to the row, and the coin is released back to you.

The system may seem unusual, but it reflects one of the biggest ideas behind Aldi’s business model: get customers to handle a few simple tasks themselves so the store can operate with fewer unnecessary costs.

The Quarter Is an Incentive, Not a Fee

The idea is remarkably simple.

When shoppers have even a small amount of money attached to returning a cart, they are far more likely to bring it back instead of abandoning it somewhere in the parking lot.

A quarter isn’t enough money to make grocery shopping expensive, but it is enough to make most people think:

I might as well return the cart and get it back.

Once the cart is reconnected, the quarter pops out.

You haven’t paid Aldi anything.

You’ve simply provided a temporary deposit.