The History of the Grocery Shopping Cart

1937 was a monumental year for the carry-all shopping basket. On June 4, Sylvan Goldman introduced the first shopping cart to his Piggly-Wiggly grocery store, changing the way customers shopped for groceries, forever. The first shopping cart was a mixture of two wire baskets set atop a buggy-style cart. Shoppers were apprehensive at first, as the cart seemed almost too cumbersome to push around a store; most shoppers were plenty comfortable with baskets and even resisted the change. Still, Mr. Goldman managed to enticing his customers with his new idea, by using decoy shoppers to model the use of the cart. The concept took off, and Sylvan Goldman soon became a multimillionaire and legend.

As time passed by, the two-basket levels soon became just one large basket. Market research showed that shoppers purchased more when the size of the cart was bigger; only few people would use a cart and fill it with one to two items. Since many original grocery stores have narrow aisles, this was often a problem. However, as stores grew, so did the cart, and today’s average shopping cart is almost two times the capacity of the original. The telescoping cart, the carts that fit into each other for better storage and ease of use, were first manufactured 1947.

So what do store designers keep in mind when choosing and designing their carts?
Coca-Cola grabbed the hearts and eyes of millions when it attached one of its first marketing-materials directly on grocery carts; a simple, “enjoy Coco-Cola while you shop” style sign was attached with two bottle holders on every cart. This was likely one of the easiest way to sell Coca-Cola before even reaching the aisle and checkout lane; to provide the opportunity for branding, along with creating a pleasant shopping experience with the joy of Coca-Cola in hand. Today, these product placement advertisements no longer exist, however many stores do use a plastic pane at the end of the cart itself to advertise in-store promotions, or other grocery-related news to shoppers. Other unique additions have been booster seats and seat belts for young children, miniature sized carts for children to shop alongside parents, shopping cart vehicles for the elderly and disabled, and carts that require shoppers to deposit a quarter to prevent theft. Megastore researchers in Britain have also funded a project that may lead to GPS systems on carts to help shoppers find their way around.

In its essence, the shopping cart was an invention to solve a problem; to reduce the cumbersome attributes of a basket and help shoppers shop more by offering a convenient, simply-designed carrying system. And the concept is not just for grocery stores anymore. Big-box retailers have joined the shopping cart needs by providing customers with super-sized carts; this can accommodate anything from garden plants, stereo systems, clothing, toys, and of course, groceries. The future of shopping carts includes the use of RFID (Radio Frequency Identifcation) tags to simply log all barcodes automatically; no scanning required, and not even unloading of the cart for checkout.

Although variations of the current grocery cart have been proposed, the familiar and simple design we are all familiar with remains to be the top choice for most grocery stores and retailers. Today’s giant carts not only perpetuate and encourage more shopping, they are becoming an increasing necessity to coordinate the flow of shoppers, understand their buying habits, and maintain general order on a large-scale. Future shopping cart designers are looking for better ways to reduce theft, increase in-store sales, and provide forefronts for advertising. Shopping carts will be getting makeovers in the next few years, perhaps even marking the 100-year anniversary of its original. In the meantime, we can look forward to self-checkout systems, the use of RFID systems, increased theft control efforts, and more advertising spots on each cart. Many stores are now offering self-cleaning carts, with optional wet-wipes available for germs on handles. Whole Foods, the organic grocery chain, also ensures shopping cart control with measures in place to specifically calculate and clean each and every cart in the store for germ and bacteria levels.

In some cases, fancy upgrades and the future of shopping carts are a long time coming; change may be just as good as a touch of WD40 on squeaky wheels. However, the future of shopping for groceries and household items is slowly but surely evolving into the next decade; online shopping is making its way in larger cities and metro areas, removing the shopper from the store altogether. Advertising will follow suit, as circulars, coupons, and in-store ‘event’s will either be removed from the experience, or take a new form online. Self-checkout systems that reduce the need for shoppers to unload carts, may turn the cart into a pallet-style offshoot that enhances the scanning and barcode technology. It’s clear that the years ahead may reduce our need for shopping carts. The shopping cart itself may soon become the two-dimensional icon we can only click, no longer push and wheel around.