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The history of the shopping trolley

The history of the shopping trolley

A trip to the supermarket wouldn’t be the same without the shopping trolley, a utilitarian piece of design that allows us to buy more than we can physically carry. Colin Bisset takes a look at the history of an invention that changed consumerism forever.

The shopping trolley is one of the most successful marketing inventions of the 20th century. It came into existence in 1937 as a by-product of a new kind of shopping experience popularised in the 1920s: the supermarket.

The trolley was the idea of American supermarket owner Sylvan Goldman, who dreamed it up as a way of encouraging shoppers to buy more items in his Humpty Dumpty chain of stores.

The frame was inspired by a folding chair and held two wire shopping baskets, one above the other, doubling the quantity of goods that could be carried. They were unpopular at first because they reminded women of prams and men considered them effeminate. To counteract this Goldman hired male and female models who spent their days pushing trolleys around his stores, leading to their gradual acceptance.

The next big innovation was made by Orla Watson in 1946. He came up with a design with a hinged rear panel which allowed trolleys to be easily pushed together for storage. The Telescope Cart was patented in 1949 and remains the model for most trolleys today. The 1950s saw massive growth of supermarket and mall-style shopping with huge parking areas, making a trolley an almost an obligatory shopping aid. The density of customer traffic made compact storage essential. In 1954, the further refinement of a fold-down seat for toddlers meant that parents were free to focus on the shelves.