Will Lidl be the next big retailer to roll-out the GoTo Shop trolley?

Tesco, Asda, Sainsbury, Dunnes Stores and Morrison’s are already making shopping trips easier and more enjoyable for special needs families living in the UK.

This latest trial in one store could see Lidl be the next big retailer to really make a difference for special needs families.

The GoTo Shop trolley is an adapted trolley that provides adjustable lateral and head support together with a five point harness and an open front for easier transfers from wheelchair, car seat or special needs buggy to trolley.

If you’d like to see Lidl ‘roll-out’ the GoTo Shop trolley across all its stores then download the campaign leaflet and hand it in to your local store.

Did you know? 

The GoTo Shop is now available in the United States! Join our US campaign by downloading this leaflet!

If not then read this great blog from Laura Rutherford ‘Why isn’t this newsworthy?’

But aside from the fact that people are being forced to lay on dirty toilet floors, sit in their own faeces or face the indignity of being changed in the back of a car/van in full view of any passing stranger…

There is another great reason for providing fully accessible toilets.

It makes great business sense.

Really? I hear you ask.

But surely, it’s so expensive, the insurance would be astronomical and the space needed would take away valuable retail space… blar blar blar.

All excuses we hear every single time any of us ask a business why they don’t provide a usable toilet that includes a height adjustable changing bench and hoist for our sons, daughters, sisters, brothers, loved ones.

Here’s the thing.

Why do you think businesses such as Tesco, Morrisons and Marks & Spencers provide toilets for other customers?

Why do you find so many loos in a cinema?

It’s because it makes great business sense.

By providing customers with a toilet INSIDE their business, it means they don’t have to leave their business!

So we can stop what we are doing, leave our trolley of shopping for a minute, have a wee and get back to browsing and inevitably spending our money.

We can spend an extortionate amount on drinks in a cinema because we know we can nip to the loo without missing too much of the film, we might even buy another drink when we pop out.

It makes great business sense.

Those toilets are MAKING them money!

Imagine if there were no toilets in any of those places, if you needed to pop out to have a wee would you end up going back afterwards?

Might you get distracted in another store and spend your money there instead?

This is the risk that every single business currently refusing to upgrade their disabled toilets is now facing.

If we are in their store and our disabled loved ones need a wee, we have no option but to leave.

And we will probably be so angry that our children/siblings/friends/clients have not been catered for that we won’t go back afterwards.

Although by the time we’ve found a usable toilet we will either be a few miles away or will be at home anyway!

We might risk visiting a cinema but we wouldn’t spend money on a drink because if they can’t ‘go’, they can’t drink.

Remember that the people we are talking about NEVER travel alone.

They might have carers with them, it might be family, it might be friends.

But every single person in that group is a potential customer with money to spend, money which these businesses are missing out on by not considering the needs of their most vulnerable customer.

So, next time you see a post about this issue and think it’s unreasonable of us to expect these big businesses to make adaptions, remember, it is in their interest to do so.

If they’ve seen the value in doing it for you, how long until they see the value in doing it for everyone?

If you work in retail, know anyone in a management position in a big store (one that already provides toilets for other customers) please tell them why this is a good idea for them to make these adaptions.

There are well over ¼ million potential customers out there who would choose to spend money with them over any other business if they knew their most basic of human needs were being catered for.

Whichever supermarket brand is the first to do this in all their stores, will have me and my family as a life long customer.

You never know, if it makes them more money you might even get a bonus for bringing the idea to them!

For more information about our Space to Change Campaign visit www.spacetochange.co.uk

The GoTo Shop Cart which is transforming shopping trips for special needs families in over 1,500 UK stores is now available in the US.

Firefly by Leckey has joined forces with The Peggs Company, one of the largest shopping cart distributors in the United States to bring this specially adapted shopping cart to the United States.

Claire Smyth, previous Firefly Campaigns Manager, ‘We’ve always known that the GoTo Shop cart is needed in the US. Since the cart launched in the UK we have received hundreds of comments on social media from our American followers asking us to bring it to the States.

We are so pleased to be partnering with The Peggs Company to make this wish a reality.

The importance of the GoTo Shop cart cannot be underestimated.

We have a strong community at Firefly and parents are continuously sharing the challenges they face with simple tasks like grocery shopping. It is the simple products that improve everyday life which are the most effective.’

GoTo Shop Cart has been designed to make shopping easier for parents and carers of young children with disabilities and more comfortable for the child.

The shopping cart seat includes a secure and adjustable 5 point harness, adjustable head and lateral support, a padded seat and open front for easy transfer.

We’re calling on our US families to get behind the campaign by downloading the special US Campaign Leaflets and handing them in to your local stores to make store managers aware that the GoTo Shop Cart is now available in the United States.

You can also get your friends and family involved by asking them to use the specially worded ‘Friends of’ leaflet.

See these leaflets and more here!

We’d also love to hear from you if you’d be interested in taking part in future trials, blogging about the GoTo Shop, or being a case study.

Don’t forget to use the #Everysupermarket if you are posting about the campaign on social media.

Research shows that in an average business, 20% of its customers will have a disability.

This group of people spend £80 billion a year.

Many of the 5 million people with special needs, can’t spend their money where they want to because there is no suitable toilet for them to use.

Restaurants, coffee shops, cinemas, department stores, shopping centres, supermarkets may provide a wheelchair accessibile toilet but without vital equipment including a hoist and changing bench these toilets are useless to a large group of people.

However, many wheelchair-accessible toilets in these locations already have the space needed – just 7.5 square metres to accommodate a hoist and changing bench.

“Hundreds of thousands of adults and children with disabilities need a carer to help them with their toilet requirements, and often also need equipment – a changing bench and hoist,” explains campaigner Samantha Buck.

“Even in my local town, I have been surprised to realise how many wheelchair-accessible toilets already have that space.

We just need them to also have a bench and hoist added: the changing bench is less than 2 metres long, and a ceiling track hoist takes up no space at all.

“In an ideal world, we’d like a full assisted accessible – Changing Places – toilet in addition to the standard wheelchair accessible facility, but that takes up an extra 12 square metres under British Standards.

Making better use of existing facilities, and turning them into Space to Change toilets by including an adult-sized changing bench and hoist is an acceptable compromise, which means families like mine can spend time doing what ‘normal’ families do – shopping, having a meal together, going to the cinema.”

Space to Change was developed by campaigners and leading disabled toilet solutions company Clos-o-Mat to bridge the gap between conventional wheelchair-accessible (Document M type) toilets and full-specification Changing Places facilities, to provide an acceptable alternative where space and/or cost is a limiting factor.

To join the Space to Change campaign and champion the need for benches and hoists to be installed in existing wheelchair accessible toilets get in touch!

Full details of the Space To Change concept, and the larger Changing Places assisted accessible toilet, can be found at www.clos-o-mat.com.

Clos-o-Mat’s website also includes full support data, including white papers, CAD blocks, video, technical specifications and typical layouts.

Uniquely, Clos-o-Mat offers, in-house, a full support service, encompassing site surveys, design advice, supply, installation, commissioning and subsequent service & maintenance.