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A shopping cart (American English), trolley (British English, Australian English), or buggy (Southern American English, Appalachian English), also known by a variety of other names, is a wheeled cart supplied by a shop or store, especially supermarkets, for use by customers inside the premises for transport of merchandise as they move around the premises, while shopping, prior to heading to the checkout counter, cashiers or tills.[1] Increasing the amount of goods a shopper can collect increases the quantities they are likely to purchase in a single trip, boosting store profitability.
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Studies have shown that it is advisable for shoppers to sanitize the handles and basket areas prior to handling them or filling them with groceries due to high levels of bacteria that typically live on shopping carts.[2] This is due to the carts having a high level of exposure to the skin flora of previous users.
Most modern 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 collecting and moving many at one time and also 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 individuals with disabilities.
As of 2006, approximately 24,000 children are injured in the United States each year in shopping carts.[3] Some stores both in the U.S. and internationally have child carrying carts that look like a car or van with a seat where a child can sit equipped with a steering wheel and sometimes a horn. Such "Car-Carts" may offer protection and convenience by keeping the child restrained, lower to the ground, protected from falling items, and amused.[4]
An alternative to the shopping cart is a small hand-held 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, or may offer a small cart which uses an inserted shopping basket within the frame of the cart to provide either choice to a customer.
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. One night, in 1936, Goldman sat in his office wondering how customers might move more groceries.[5] He found a wooden folding chair and put a basket on the seat and wheels on the legs. Goldman and one of his employees, a mechanic named Fred Young, 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." Goldman had already pioneered self-serve stores and carts were part of the self-serve retail concept.[6]
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," an offended woman informed Goldman.[citation needed] 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.[citation needed] In urban areas like New York City, where transporting groceries home from the store's parking lot is more likely to involve walking and/or a trip by public transportation than a car ride, privately owned carts resembling Goldman's design are still popular. Instead of baskets, these carts are built to hold the paper bags dispensed by the grocery store.
Another shopping cart innovator was Orla Watson,[7] who invented the swinging rear door to allow for "nesting" in 1946.[8][9][10] Orla Watson continued to make modifications to his original design. Advice from his trusted business partners Fred Taylor, a grocery store owner in Kansas City,[11] and George O'Donnell, a grocery store refrigeration salesman, and the incorporation of Watson's swinging door yielded the familiar nesting cart that we see today using the "double-decker" approach.[12] Goldman patented a similar version of the cart with only one basket rather than the double-decker feature, which he called the "Nest-Kart" in 1948, over one year after Watson filed for his patent.[11] The Nest-Kart incorporated the same nesting mechanism present on the shopping carts designed by Watson, and an interference investigation was ordered by Telescope Carts, Inc. alleging infringement of the patent in 1948.[11] After a protracted legal battle, Goldman ultimately recognized Watson's invention and paid one dollar in damages for counterfeit, in exchange for which Watson granted Goldman an exclusive operating license (apart from the three licenses that had already been granted).[11]
In 1909, Bessie DeCamp invented a seat belt for chairs, go-carts or carriages.[13] This was well before shopping carts with child seating areas were invented. Goldman introduced a child seating area on shopping carts in 1947.[14][15] For whatever reason, it wasn't until 1967 that seat belts for shopping carts were introduced by David Allen. It was high tech for the time, because it was a retractable seat belt.[16]
In 1946, Orla Watson devised a system for a telescoping (i.e., "nesting") shopping cart which did not require assembly or disassembly of its parts before and after use like Goldman's cart; Goldman's design up until this point required that the cart be unfolded much like a folding chair.[11] This cart could be fitted into another cart for compact storage via a swinging one-way rear door. The swinging rear door formed the basis of the patent claim, and was a major innovation in the evolution of the modern shopping cart. Watson applied for a patent on his shopping cart invention in 1946, but Goldman contested it and filed an application for a similar patent with the swinging door feature on a shopping cart with only one basket in 1948 which Goldman named the "Nest-Kart". After considerable litigation and allegations of patent infringement, Goldman relinquished his rights to the patent in 1949 to Watson and his company, Telescope Carts, Inc. realizing that the swinging rear door feature was the key to Watson's patent. Watson was awarded patent #2,479,530 on August 16, 1949.[17] In exchange, Goldman was granted an exclusive licensing right in addition to the three other licenses previously granted; Telescope Carts, Inc. continued to receive royalties for each cart produced by Goldman's company that incorporated the "nesting" design. This included any shopping cart utilizing his hinged rear door, including the familiar single basket "nesting" designs similar to those used in the present.[18]
Owing to its overwhelming success, many different manufacturers desired to produce shopping carts with the rear swinging door feature but were denied due to the exclusive license issued to Goldman.[citation needed] The federal government filed a lawsuit against Telescope Carts, Inc. in 1950 alleging the exclusive license granted to Goldman was invalid, and a Consent Decree was entered into where Telescope Carts, Inc. agreed to offer the same license to any manufacturer. Orla Watson and Telescope Carts, Inc. licensed their telescoping shopping cart design to several manufacturers throughout the 1950s and 1960s until the patent expired.
In 2012, a driverless shopping cart was made by Chaotic Moon Labs.[19] The device, called "Project Sk8" or "Smarter Cart" was basically a cart fitted with Windows Kinect (to detect obstacles), and an electric drivetrain, and used in conjunction with a Windows 8 tablet. For smaller stores, shopping baskets with wheels can be used either as a large basket or a small cart. These carts are designed for indoor use only.
In 2017, a mobile device shelf was added to shopping carts at Target stores to support the digital in-store shopping experience. The shelf was invented and designed by Nick Dyer, a former employee of Target.[20]
The introduction of "EASY Shopper" in 2019 by Pentland Firth Software GmbH in partnership with the German retailer EDEKA represents another step in the evolution of shopping carts. Equipped with a tablet, barcode scanner, and cashierless checkout system, the smart shopping cart aims to provide customers with a more streamlined and convenient shopping experience.[21] The system utilizes computer vision to accurately track items in the cart and allow customers to scan and pay for their purchases as they shop, reducing the need to stand in line and wait to pay for their items. [22]
Past studies determined that retailers who did not offer shopping carts such as Sears suffered lower sales in comparison to retailers who did use shopping carts.[23]Subsequent to the introduction of shopping carts and centralized checkout lines at Sears stores, the company noticed a correlating increase in sales.[24]
In 2004 British supermarket chain Tesco trialed shopping carts with user-adjustable wheel resistance, heart rate monitoring and calorie counting hardware in an effort to raise awareness of health issues. The cart's introduction coincided with Tesco's sponsorship of Cancer Research UK's fundraising event Race for Life.[25][26]
Also in 2004, shopping carts were identified as a source of pathogens and became a major public health concern.[to whom?] This was primarily due to the media spotlight on a Japanese research study revealing large amounts of bacteria on shopping carts.[27][28] Those findings were later backed by a University of Arizona study in 2007.[29] 041b061a72