History of the Trolley
It all began here…
The first shopping cart was introduced on June 4, 1937, the invention of Sylvan Goldman, owner of the Piggly-Wiggly supermarket chain in Oklahoma City,USA. With the assistance of Fred Young, a mechanic, Goldman constructed the first shopping cart, basing his design on a wooden folding chair.
They built it with a metal frame and added wheels and wire baskets, and 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,” offended women informed him. 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, many big-box stores and supermarkets have shopping carts for the convenience of the shoppers.