Shopping carts left in parking spots. Carts run up on curbs or pooled in parking lot shrubbery. Carts rolling toward parked—or moving—cars (they aren’t picky). We saw the same things you have and decided to do something about it.

What we learned blew us away. For one, dealing with stray shopping carts is crazy expensive for retailers. We reviewed as much online research as we could find. But that wasn’t enough, so we contacted more than 1400 shopping cart users, 440 interviewees, and 500 store managers from three major retailers to see what they think. With the data we gathered, we calculated that it costs those retailers more than $2.1 billion a year—just to move carts from parking lots to the storefront. In addition, many carts are stolen. Finding them and replacing them is costly. Adding insult to injury, many cities fine the retailer when stolen carts turn up around town.

Clearly, we were on to something. The deeper we went, the more we realized that people have strong feelings about shopping carts—and the shoppers who use them. Failing to return a shopping cart to a cart corral or the store apparently is tantamount to being anything from merely thoughtless to truly awful. Hmmmmm.

And so Curbisy was born. Our name comes from “courtesy” and our mission to return as many carts to storefronts as possible. Our innovative technology and app reward shoppers to do the right thing—return their carts. Each cart returned earns points toward cash back rewards at the store. At the same time, we can help retailers save millions of dollars. We can help free employees from “cart-train” duty and turn their talents to more strategic projects. We can protect customers from driverless carts taking direct aim at a high-speed roll. We can even help stop cart kidnapping and abandonment around America.