Design
Virtually all shopping carts are made of metal or a combination of metal and plastic and have been designed to nest within each other in a line to facilitate moving many at one time, and to save on storage space. The carts can come in many sizes, with larger ones able to carry a child. There are also specialized carts designed for two children, and electric mobility scooters with baskets designed for disabled customers. 24,000 children in the USA are injured each year in shopping carts.Some stores have child carts that look like a car or van with a seat where a child can sit. Such "Car-Carts" or "Beans", as some call them in the cart business, may offer protection and convenience by keeping the child restrained, lower to the ground, protected from falling items, and amused.
Shopping carts are usually fitted with four wheels. However, if any one wheel jams the cart can become difficult to handle. Most American carts have swivel wheels (caster wheels) at the front, while the rear wheels are fixed in orientation, whilst in Europe it is more common to have four swivel wheels. An alternative to the shopping cart is a small handheld shopping basket. A customer may prefer a basket for a small amount of merchandise. Small shops, where carts would be impractical, often supply only baskets.
History
One of the first shopping carts was introduced on June 4, 1937, the invention of Sylvan Goldman, owner of the Humpty Dumpty supermarket chain in Oklahoma City (another shopping-cart innovator was Orla Watson).One night, in 1936, Goldman sat in his office wondering how customers might move more groceries. He found a wooden folding chair and put a basket on the seat and wheels on the legs. Goldman and one of his employees, Fred Young, a mechanic, began tinkering. Their first shopping cart was a metal frame that held two wire baskets. Since they were inspired by the folding chair, Goldman called his carts "folding basket carriers". Another mechanic, Arthur Kosted, developed a method to mass produce the carts by inventing an assembly line capable of forming and welding the wire. The cart was awarded patent number 2,196,914 on April 9, 1940 (Filing date: March 14, 1938), titled, "Folding Basket Carriage for Self-Service Stores". They advertised the invention as part of a new “No Basket Carrying Plan."
The invention did not catch on immediately. Men found them effeminate; women found them suggestive of a baby carriage. "I've pushed my last baby buggy," an offended woman informed Goldman. After hiring several male and female models to push his new invention around his store and demonstrate their utility, as well as greeters to explain their use, shopping carts became extremely popular and Goldman became a multimillionaire. Goldman continued to make modifications to his original design, and the basket size of the shopping cart increased as stores realized that their customers purchased more as its size increased. Today, most big-box stores and supermarkets have shopping carts for the convenience of the shoppers.
Recent studies determined that cartless retailers such as Sears and J.C. Penney have suffered slow sales in recent years. Retailers that do use shopping carts, Wal-Mart among them, have had booming sales. In large part this could be attributed to the ease of shopping made possible by the shopping cart.
There has been little progress in the design of shopping carts in the last decade. Recently researchers developed prototypes of computerized context aware shopping cart by attaching a Tablet PC to an ordinary cart. Initial field trials showed that the prototype and it's context-awareness provide an opportunity for enhancing and affecting the shopping experience.