Who Invented Shopping Carts?
It is hard to imagine a trip to the supermarket without the ubiquitous metal shopping carts. Shoppers load, push, and fight to steer the shopping carts. Shopping carts are scattered across parking lots and lined up outside stores. However, when shopping carts first came out, they were not readily accepted. Sylvan Goldman, the owner of the Piggly Wiggly supermarkets in Oklahoma City, noticed that his shoppers had to struggle to carry their heavy hand-held shopping baskets. He wanted to make shopping easier for his customers, so that they would buy more. In 1937, he and his mechanic friend, Fred Young, mounted folding chairs on wheels and set the shopping basket down on the seat of the chairs. This was the first of all shopping carts. Goldman’s customers generally did not accept the shopping carts immediately. Everyone seemed to have a problem with them; the elderly did not want to appear helpless, women did not want to look unstylish, and men did not want to seem weak. Models were hired
Sylvan Goldman, in the late 1930s. Goldman, a grocer, desired to make shopping as easy for the customer as possible. Goldman believed happy customers buy more. Goldman wanted customers to be able to move more groceries. According to numerous online sources, in 1937 he stared at a folding chair and to him came an inspiration. A basket could be fit to the seat and wheels could go on the legs. Goldman and mechanic Fred Young started putzing and forever changed the American retail experience by the time they were putzed-out. The first shopping cart was a metal frame that held two wire baskets. And people hated them.
