What Stores Have Motorized Shopping Carts? A Store-by-Store Guide for 2026

Wondering what stores have motorized shopping carts? Most large U.S. retail chains keep a small fleet of free motorized shopping carts near the front entrance, so if you shop at Walmart, Target, Kroger, Publix, Costco, Sam's Club, Home Depot, Lowe's, or Menards, the odds are good there is an electric cart for customers waiting just inside the door. The catch is supply. Each store keeps only a handful, so availability is never promised and it swings hard by location and time of day. Which chains stock them, what the carts are called, and how to reserve one before you arrive all vary by store.

Store owners who would rather offer their own carts than have shoppers borrow one face a separate buying decision. The choice comes down to cart capacity, fleet size, and how the unit fits your floor.

Last updated June 2026. Per-store availability changes often, so treat every count as typical, not guaranteed, and call your local store to confirm.

What stores have motorized shopping carts?

Most large U.S. retail chains stock free motorized shopping carts near the front entrance, including Walmart, Target, Kroger, Publix, Costco, Sam's Club, Home Depot, Lowe's, and Menards. Four store types reliably keep them. Big-box stores, warehouse clubs, full-size grocery chains, and home-improvement retailers. The carts are free, and you do not need to ask permission or show ID to take one for your trip.

Supply is the real limit. A single store usually keeps two to six electric carts parked at a charging dock by the entrance. That is a small number against a busy Saturday crowd, so a store can genuinely stock them and still have none free when you walk in. The fix is the same everywhere. Call ahead, and shop off-peak.

Store-by-store availability at a glance

This snapshot shows which major chains stock motorized carts, where to find them once you are inside, and the catch for each store type. The pattern holds across almost every chain. Free carts near the entrance, a small fleet, and faster turnover on weekends.

Does Walmart have motorized shopping carts and what are they called?

Yes. Walmart keeps free motorized shopping carts near the entrance of most Supercenters, parked at a charging station by the registers. They are usually built by Amigo Mobility or Pride, which is why staff and longtime shoppers call them Amigo carts. There is no official Walmart brand name. The "Amigo" label stuck the way "Kleenex" stuck to tissues, so an Amigo cart, an electric cart, a motorized cart, and the scooter at the front of the store are all the same machine. Ask an associate for the electric cart and they will know what you mean.

Most stores post the same common-sense rules. One rider per cart, walking pace, keep it inside, and return it to the charging dock when you finish. These rules vary by store and are not federal law, so check the posted signage at your location. The hard part at Walmart is supply. A Supercenter draws big crowds but still keeps only a handful of carts, so weekend afternoons are the worst time to find a free one.

Do home-improvement and grocery stores have motorized carts?

Home Depot, Lowe's, and Menards all provide free motorized carts near the entrance. The wrinkle is the warehouse format. The buildings are enormous, but each store carries only two or three carts relative to that floor size, so they get claimed fast on weekends and during big project seasons. Skip the aisle hunt and go straight to the contractor desk, returns counter, or customer service. Staff know where the carts charge and can sometimes radio the floor or pull a fresh unit from the dock for you.

Grocery chains and warehouse clubs round out the list, including Kroger, Publix, Safeway, Albertsons, H-E-B, Meijer, Costco, and Sam's Club. Full-size supermarkets are the most reliable category because so many of their shoppers need a cart, so a large modern store often keeps several units rather than two or three. Store size and age drive it. A cramped older grocery may have one cart or none, while a big suburban location is a safer bet. Warehouse clubs add two catches. You need a membership to shop, and the buildings are large relative to the cart count, so a club can stock carts and still run short on a packed weekend.

How do you find and reserve a motorized cart at any store?

Call the store before you go, ask customer service to set one aside, and shop at off-peak hours. No law requires a store to keep a working motorized cart free the exact moment you arrive. The Americans with Disabilities Act requires public stores to provide reasonable access, and you can read the federal guidance at ADA.gov and the U.S. Access Board, but it does not mandate a specific number of charged carts on hand at all times. So a store can comply fully and still have every cart in use when you show up. That gap is why calling ahead works.

Three asks at the customer service desk make the difference. Request a cart that is fully charged so it lasts your whole trip. Ask whether staff can meet you at the door or bring it to your car if walking from the lot is hard. And if a cart is dead or stuck, report it right away so staff can swap it rather than leave you stranded.

For store owners and facility managers who want to offer motorized carts

This section is for the smaller group of readers who run a store, a senior-living floor, or a large facility and want to offer customers a motorized cart, not borrow one. Start with our buyer guide to motorized shopping carts for stores, which walks through capacity, fleet size, charging setup, and floor layout. The part of the buying decision we get asked about most is the cart itself and how to size it.

The cart Heavy Duty Mobility sells for this job is the EZ Shopper 8000 electric shopping cart. It is the customer-facing unit a store buys to put by its own entrance, the same kind of cart your shoppers reach for at Walmart or Kroger. It is made in the USA and currently priced at $2,999, down from a regular $4,350.

The specs map directly to the retail-floor job. It carries a 750 lb rider, so it covers the bariatric shoppers a lighter consumer scooter cannot. The basket holds up to 250 lb across 9100 cubic inches, which is a real grocery run, not a token carry-all. A full charge delivers up to 20 hours of shopping run time, so one overnight charge on the dock covers a full trading day for most stores. The forward speed is 2.5 mph and programmable, which matters more than it looks. It is deliberately slow so the cart moves at a walking pace among standing shoppers, and the programmable cap lets you dial it down further on a tight floor. The turning radius is 34 inches, tight enough for a standard checkout lane and an end-cap turn without a three-point shuffle.

Here is the short decision framework we give buyers. The EZ Shopper 8000 is the right pick when three things are true. Your floor is an indoor retail or assisted-living surface, your riders include heavier customers up to 750 lb, and you want one proven cart you can charge overnight and forget. It is the wrong pick when any of those flips. If you need to move freight or pull loaded carts rather than carry a rider and a basket, that is a tugger, not a shopping cart. If your route is heavy outdoor or industrial, the slow walking-pace speed and retail-floor build are working against you. And if you only ever serve light, ambulatory shoppers, a smaller consumer scooter may be all you need. Match the cart to the rider and the surface first, then the price.

Raphael's rule of thumb When a store owner asks me how many carts to buy, I tell them to count their busiest hour, not their average one. A supermarket that runs fine with three carts on a Tuesday morning will still leave a customer stranded at the door on a Saturday, and that stranded customer is the one who writes the review. The non-obvious part is the charging dock, not the cart count. A 20-hour run time only helps if every cart goes back on the dock at close, so I tell owners to dock more units than they run and rotate them, never run the fleet flat. Size the fleet to the rush, add one, and give every cart its own charging spot. That last point is the one most stores skip, and it is the one that keeps a cart dead in the corner instead of ready at the door.

One more field note. The 750 lb rider rating is the spec I lean on hardest when a store pushes back on price. A consumer scooter that tops out far lower forces a heavier customer to stand and walk, which is exactly the shopper the store most wanted to serve. The EZ Shopper 8000 covers that rider in one machine, which is why we steer retail and assisted-living floors to it rather than a stack of lighter units. For the broader catalog, browse electric shopping carts for retail and assisted living floors or our wider range of motorized carts for facilities.