A Grocer's Frustration Leads to Innovation

Before the advent of the shopping cart, customers in self-service grocery stores were limited to buying what they could carry in their arms or small hand-held baskets, often stopping their shopping when the load became too heavy. This observation bothered Sylvan Goldman, the owner of the Humpty Dumpty supermarket chain in Oklahoma, in the mid-1930s. He realized that if shoppers could carry more, they would buy more, directly impacting his store's profits. One night in 1936, inspired by a wooden folding chair, Goldman conceived of a wheeled device to help customers transport their groceries.

From Folding Chair to 'Folding Basket Carrier'

Working with his employee, mechanic Fred Young, Goldman created the first prototype: a metal frame with two wire baskets, based on the design of a folding chair, and wheels on the legs. He called his invention 'folding basket carriers'. Another mechanic, Arthur Kosted, developed an assembly line to mass-produce these wire carts. Goldman introduced his device to the public on June 4, 1937, at his Humpty Dumpty supermarkets in Oklahoma City, even patenting it as a 'Folding Basket Carriage for Self-Service Stores' by April 9, 1940.

Overcoming Initial Resistance and The 'Nesting' Revolution

Despite its practicality, Goldman's invention wasn't an immediate success; both men and women were initially reluctant to use them. Men found them 'effeminate,' while women, tired of pushing baby carriages, felt they resembled strollers. To overcome this resistance, Goldman ingeniously hired attractive models, both male and female, to push the carts around his stores, demonstrating their utility and normalizing their use. This marketing tactic worked, and the shopping cart's popularity soared, making Goldman a multimillionaire. A crucial innovation arrived in 1946 when Orla Watson devised the 'nesting' or 'telescoping' cart, which allowed carts to fit inside one another for compact storage via a swinging rear door, solving the space issue of Goldman's original folding design. After initial patent disputes, Goldman licensed Watson's design, and the nesting cart became the industry standard.