People Are Ditching Full Shopping Carts At the Store, Says Consumerist

It looks like we might be edging our way out of the recession - no guarantees on that - but it's still having an effect on most normal consumers, leading to some pretty sad results. Consumerist is reporting that widespread cart abandonment is occurring at shopping centers all across the country. Yep, people will just fill up a shopping cart and, unable to buy the merchandise, will just leave it in the store, slap full.

Hard numbers are difficult to come by, but Burt P. Flickinger III, a retail consultant, estimates that in 25 percent of shoppers' trips to the store, they're ditching at least one item. In the recession of the early 1990s, it was 15 to 20 percent. In good times, it's more like 10 percent.

Now, there is little evidence that it's happening to this degree, but if it is happening at all, it's a truly depressing phenomenon.