ShopKo carts/baskets

[Retail Fan+ (Justin Hill)]

Older ShopKo carts/baskets from the 1970s and '80s are dark blue or orange, ShopKo shopping carts/baskets from the 1990s are gray or blue, and 2000s ShopKo carts/baskets are black or tan. If you find some ShopKo carts in your area, post pictures here.

Here's an early 2000s black/gray ShopKo cart:


An '80s ShopKo cart:

[darkmoon9]

Here is a photo of a ShopKo cart taken at an old Phillips Van Heusen warehouse on Rt 61 Schuylkill Haven,Pa. The warehouse is now home to Alpha Mills Corp.  It hard to see , but it's gray.  Alpha Mills Corp. is a DS/DC for major stores like Walmart,Kmart,JC Penney,Khols, Amazon.com, and other small stores. They ship Foot of the Loom Women's underwear,and sleepware.  Some of the people that work there are from Ames DC 969 Leesport,Pa. like me.

[Retail Fan+ (Justin Hill)]

The basket on top is a ShopKo basket, found in a stack of baskets at St. Vincent DePaul Thrift Store, Green Bay, Wisconsin.
This photo is from a fellow Flickr user, Andrew T.

That ShopKo cart you found in Pennsylvania must be from one of the former Indiana locations, which closed five years ago.

[Marc82]

Tell Shopko to get off their asses and open in Connecticut. I don't know if it's big enuff, but there's a vacant 85000 Square Foot Walmart in New Britain. It's about 1 mile from I-84 Exit 37 in Farmington and 2 1/2 Miles from I-84 Exit 36 in New Britain (without taking the highway), which was wear Walmart was originally.

[Retail Fan+ (Justin Hill)]

Tell Shopko to get off their asses and open in Connecticut. I don't know if it's big enuff, but there's a vacant 85000 Square Foot Walmart in New Britain. It's about 1 mile from I-84 Exit 37 in Farmington and 2 1/2 Miles from I-84 Exit 36 in New Britain (without taking the highway), which was wear Walmart was originally.

I don't think Shopko has any plans to open anywhere outside their core markets right now, the Midwest, the Plains, Mountain, Northern California, and the Pacific Northwest regions are their current markets. They just closed their Indiana, Missouri, Kansas, Kentucky, Nevada, and Colorado stores five years ago, as well as their Twin Valu hypermarkets in Ohio ten years ago. I doubt that they would last long out there, since there are not that many people who know about Shopko out there. If Shopko were to expand that way in the future, it would probably be from an acquisition of another regional retailer, just like when they acquired the Jack's Discount Stores in southern Illinois. The most common store size for Shopko is 90,000 square feet, with some of their smallest at 50,000 square feet, and their biggest at 120,000+ square feet. I'd possibly see them open up in a shopping mall or a strip center before going ahead with freestanding locations, since they draw lots of traffic when busy. Shopko did plan to merge with Phar-Mor in 1996, but they called off the merger a year later. At least their buyout of Pamida helped their stores get back on track before they were spun off into a separate entity.

[gu4ever]

Speaking of Shopko expanding into the northeast makes me think of Kohls. That company seemed to swarm into NH and I'm sure other new england communities as well in the early 2000's. They seemed to target all the Bradlees buildings that were sitting empty at that time. Now they just seem to be part of the scenery here, although actually they are still relatively new being 5 to 10 years old now.

[Marc82]

At that time In Connecticut numerous Caldor locations went to Kohl's. And some went to Walmart. At the same time both companies were also building new stores as well.

[1240east]

Here is mine just bought it from the janesville shopko

[Retail Regents]

A couple years ago, there was one cart an OSJL was using that had what appears to be 1991-2007 ShopKo logos that were poorly filed off.

[1240east]

My grey shopko cart this was found with other blue shopko carts but it was the only grey one

[Retail Fan+ (Justin Hill)]

Orange Shopko carts - 1970s-early 1980s
Blue Shopko carts (1975-1991 logo) - mid-1980s
Red Shopko carts - late 1980s-early 1990s
Gray Shopko carts/dark gray Shopko carts - early-mid 1990s
Blue Shopko carts (1991-2007 logo) - 1999-2003
Black Shopko carts - 2003-2008
Tan Shopko carts (2008 logo) - 2008-2019

[Retail Fan+ (Justin Hill)]

These were the plastic black/gray shopping carts Shopko used from 2003 until they were replaced in 2008. I nicknamed these carts "Darth Vader carts" because of the colors the carts used.

[1240east]

The Janesville shopko never got the new tan carts so they continued to use the black carts but they did get the newer tan baskets

[Retail Fan+ (Justin Hill)]

The Janesville shopko never got the new tan carts so they continued to use the black carts but they did get the newer tan baskets

Some locations did manage to hold onto their carts for a bit longer than others. Not all stores got the green paintjob, either. Shopko was taken too soon, but at least their eyecare business is still around...

[Retail Regents]

The Janesville shopko never got the new tan carts so they continued to use the black carts but they did get the newer tan baskets

I believe the newest type was a black metal Technibilt cart with tan trim. Did it not get those either?

[1240east]

Here is an orange shopko cart