In the article it actually discusses this - the article states that a lot of US grocers tried to have the coin carts in the ‘80s and ‘90s but there was apparently enough of a consumer backlash to them that they took them away. So it’s more of a cultural thing it seems.

Anecdotally I think it’s not as much of a problem with Aldi today because

1. The Aldi parking lots in USA are all pretty tiny

2. People generally know what they are signing up for when they go to an Aldi

Generally I think that there would still be a backlash today if Walmart implemented coin carts, for instance. Which I really despise because as someone who worked as a cart pusher as a kid it’s unnecessarily infuriating for me to see the pure laziness of shoppers who can’t be arsed to walk 5 meters to drop their cart into the return location and instead push it onto the median next to their car.

Side note I want to take this chance to say that I absolutely love Aldi. There’s one that’s just far enough away from where I live to make it not worth the drive and the second they build one closer I will immediately do all of my grocery shopping there :)

I do my shopping at Auchan and I often opt for the basket because I don't have the right coin on me. They probably lose more than they save because people are buying less. Given the prevalence of contact-less payment in Europe, hypermarkets should consider dropping it.

The system makes more sense for markets the size of a Lidl or Aldi.