A shopping cart (trolley, carriage) is a cart supplied by a shop, especially supermarkets, for use by customers inside the shop for transport of merchandise to the check-out counter during shopping. Customers can then also use the cart to transport their purchased goods to their cars.
In some places, customers are allowed to leave the carts in the parking lot, and store personnel will return the carts to the storage area. In most European premises however, coin (or token) operated locking mechanisms are provided to encourage shoppers to return the carts to the correct location after use.
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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 specialised carts designed for two children, and electric mobility scooters with baskets designed for disabled customers.
In the USA 24,000 children are injured each year in shopping carts.[1] Some stores both in the USA 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" 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 at the front, while the rear wheels are fixed in orientation, while in Europe it is more common to have four swivel wheels.
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.
One of the first shopping carts was introduced on June 4, 1937, the invention of Sylvan Goldman, owner of the Piggly Wiggly supermarket chain in Oklahoma City (another shopping-cart innovator was Orla Watson).[2][3][4] 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, 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.
Past studies determined that retailers who did not offer shopping carts such as Sears suffered slower sales in comparison with retailers who did use shopping carts. [6] Subsequent to the introduction of shopping trolleys and centralised checkout lines at Sears shops, the company noticed an increase in sales. [7]
In 2004 the British supermarket chain Tesco trialled shopping trolleys with built in resistance (adjustable from 1 to 10), pulse monitoring and calorie counting hardware in an effort to raise awareness of health issues. This introduction of the trolleys coincided with Tesco's sponsorship of the cancer awareness Race for Life. [8] [9] [10]
Recently researchers developed prototypes of computerised context aware shopping cart by attaching a Tablet PC to an ordinary cart [11] Initial field trials showed that the prototype and its context-awareness provide an opportunity for enhancing and affecting the shopping experience.
While the basic design of shopping carts has changed very little since their creation in the 1930s, Target's new cart, made of recycled plastic, is an evolutionary step forward. The cart has won design awards for its improved casters, interchangeable plastic parts to simplify repairs and handles that allow a user to more easily maneuver it around the retail area.[12]
In many countries, the customer has to pay a small deposit by inserting a coin, token or card, which is returned if and when the customer returns the cart to a designated cart parking point. The motivation behind the deposit systems is not theft deterrent (the trolley is worth significantly more than the deposit) but to reduce the expense of employees having to gather carts that are not returned, and to avoid damage done by runaway trolleys.
Although almost ubiquitous in Europe and Canada, the deposit system has not been widely adopted in the United States, with the exception of some chains like Aldi, who require a $0.25 deposit. Other stores such as Costco and ShopRite also use the coin deposit system, but it is not used at all of their locations.
In Australia, deposit systems are common in some local government areas as they have been made compulsory by local law. Usually, all ALDI stores, and most Coles and Safeway stores will have a lock mechanism on their trolley which requires a $1 or $2 coin to unlock. One district council in Sydney has banned the use of shopping trolleys because of the tendency of people to take shopping carts home with them and not return them to the shop. [13]
The deposit varies, but usually coins of higher value, such as €1, £1, or $1 are used. While the deposit systems usually are designed to accommodate a certain size of domestic coin, foreign coins, former currencies (like DM coins) or even appropriately folded pieces of cardboard can be used to unlock the trolleys as well. Trolley collectors are also usually provided with a special key which they can use to unlock the trolleys from the trolley bay and get the key back.
Some retailers sell "trolley tokens" as an alternative to coins, often for charity. Merchandising companies also offer branded shopping trolley tokens as a product.
In some airports a system similar to the shopping trolley deposit is also used with luggage carts as a profit making opportunity. Companies like Smarte Carte charge two or more dollars (U.S.) (or equivalent) for rental, and return a small token reward of a quarter (25 ¢) for returning carts to the other end of any dispenser machine.
Shopping cart theft can be a costly problem with stores that use them. The carts, which cost between $75 and $150 each, are removed by people for various purposes. To prevent costly theft estimated at $800 million worldwide per annum, stores use various systems, discussed below.[14]
Most retailers in North America utilize a cart retrieval service, which collects carts found off the store's premises and returns them to the store for a fee. The primary strength of this system is the ability of pedestrian customers to take purchases home and allow retailers to recapture abandoned carts in a timely manner at a fraction of the cost of a replacement cart. It also allows retailers to maintain their cart inventories without an expensive capital outlay.[15] A drawback of this method is that it is reactive instead of proactively preventing the carts from leaving a parking lot.[14] One of the nation's leading cart retrieval companies, California Shopping Cart Retrieval Corporation, was formed in 1993 after retailers realized the cart retrieval business should run in a professional, efficient and ethical manner. The firm now operates in several western states and is expanding its service areas.[16] A new iPhone application, CartSnap, was recently created to allow users to take a photo of an abandoned shopping cart and instantaneously submit the data to the company which, in turn, streams the data to CSCRC, so that drivers can quickly find and return an abandoned cart. [17]
Electronic systems are sometimes used by retailers. Each shopping cart is fitted with an electronic locking wheel, or 'boot'. A transmitter with a thin wire is placed around the perimeter of the parking lot, and the boot locks when the cart leaves the designated area. Store personnel must then deactivate the lock with a hand-held remote to return the cart to stock. Often a line is painted in front of the broadcast range to warn customers that their cart will stop when rolled past the line. Unfortunately these systems are very expensive to install and although helpful are not foolproof. The wheels can be lifted over the electronic barrier and/or pushed hard enough that the locks break.[14][18] Some cities have required retailers to install locking wheel systems on their shopping carts. In some cases, electronic systems companies have encouraged passage of such laws to create a captive audience of potential customers.[19]
Some trolleys have magnetic locking wheels. The supermarket floor has a magnetic strip around a designated perimeter line, if the trolley passes over this line the wheels lock and the trolley is rendered immovable. However the wheel locks can be broken and the trolley is movable again.
A low-tech form of theft prevention utilizes a physical impediment, such as vertical posts at the store entrance to keep carts from being taken into the parking lot. This method also impedes physically disabled customers, which may be illegal in many jurisdictions. For example, in the United States of America, it is a violation of the Americans with Disabilities Act.[18]
Another method is to mount a pole with a height higher than the entrance, onto the shopping cart, so that the pole will block exit of the cart. However, this method requires the aisles of the store (including lights, piping, any overhead signage and fixtures) to be higher than that of the pole. It also prevents customers from carting their purchases to their cars, at least in the store's carts. Many customers learn to bring their own folding or otherwise collapsible cart with them, which they can usually hang on the store's cart while shopping.
The names of a shopping cart vary by region. The following names are regional-specific names for shopping carts:
Special electronic shopping carts are provided by many retailers for the elderly or people with a disability. These are essentially electric wheelchairs with an attached basket. They allow customers to navigate around the store and collect groceries.
Manually powered trolleys are also available specifically designed for use by wheelchair users.[20][21] A still to be implemented aid for people with disabilities is the addition of a guide wheel at the centre of rotation of a trolley with 4 caster wheels. In order to allow the nesting of trolleys to be unhindered this guide wheel is attached to the front of the trolley with a piece of spring steel which bends under the carts weight.[22]
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