The COVID craze of 2020 gave birth to the rise of Instacart - and possibly other services - that created a new class of professional grocery shoppers. This class has not gone away and appears to be permanent, as I still observe them today.
I have noticed that the telltale sign that someone is shopping professionally is their shopping cart technique. The amateur grocery shopper, like me, pushes their shopping cart from behind. The professionals pull their cart from the front corner. This is the taxonomy as observed in the wild.
But ever since I've noticed this, I've been wondering why. I can't figure it out. What have the pro's learned that we have been blind to?
For one thing, being behind means that you're going into intersections somewhat blind. Peering from out front allows one to easily avoid accidents. But I don't think this is sufficient cause.
Secondly, the steering leverage using the "push" technique forces you to use two hands. The "pull" method allows for less effort and frees up one hand for consulting a grocery list stored on a smart phone. This is the most likely reason I've found to date, but is not entirely satisfactory... I often have a phone in one hand as I'm pushing the cart from behind, it works just fine. And is the saved energy really that important when the in-store workload is only part of your job?
This remains an ongoing mystery.
