Why Nobody Wanted Shopping Carts

In June 1937, an Oklahoma City grocer rolled out a brand-new invention, and by his own account, almost nobody would touch it. His fix, the way he told it, was to hire people to pretend to shop. This is the story of the shopping cart: why shoppers once refused it, what it was really built to do, and why the cart you push today came from a forgotten draftsman in Kansas City. Sylvan Goldman turned a folding chair into a cart to get past the limit of a heavy basket. Nine years later, Orla Watson added a hinged back flap that lets carts nest into each other, and in 1949 Goldman took a license on Watson's patent. A federal judge first called the idea too obvious to count. In 1950 alone, it brought Watson $78,442.75. CHAPTERS 0:00 Nobody Would Touch Them 0:57 When a Clerk Got Everything 1:40 The Basket Problem 2:32 The Fake Shoppers 3:38 Built So You Buy More 4:47 The Forgotten Inventor 6:13 Too Obvious to Patent 7:14 Who Decided Your Limit SOURCES • Clarence Saunders, "Self-serving store," U.S. Patent 1,242,872 (filed Oct. 21, 1916; granted Oct. 9, 1917) • Tennessee Encyclopedia, "Piggly Wiggly Supermarkets" • Tevere Macfadyen, "The Rise of the Supermarket," American Heritage, Oct./Nov. 1985 • Curt Wohleber, "The Shopping Cart," Invention & Technology, Summer 2004 • Catherine Grandclément, "Wheeling food products around the store… and away: the invention of the shopping cart, 1936-1953," CSI Working Paper 006, École des Mines de Paris, 2006 (including her citations of Terry P. Wilson, "The Cart That Changed the World," 1978) • Smithsonian National Museum of American History, "Goldman's Folding Basket Carriage," ca. 1937 (CL.302377.01) • Smithsonian National Museum of American History, "Telescoping Shopping Cart," ca. 1949 (2000.0166.01) • Smithsonian Libraries, "Doodles, Drafts and Designs: Orla Watson" • Orla E. Watson, "Store basket and carriage," U.S. Patent 2,479,530 (filed Sept. 27, 1946; granted Aug. 16, 1949) • Sylvan N. Goldman, "Baby seat for store carts," U.S. Patent 2,508,670 (filed May 5, 1949; granted May 23, 1950) • Watson v. Heil, 192 F.2d 982 (4th Cir., Dec. 11, 1951), quoting the district court's 1951 opinion • Watson v. United States, 222 F.2d 689 (10th Cir., May 12, 1955) • Z. Estes and M. C. Streicher, "Getting a Handle on Sales: Shopping Carts Affect Purchasing by Activating Arm Muscles," Journal of Marketing; American Marketing Association press release, Dec. 8, 2021; University of Innsbruck press release, Dec. 10, 2021 • Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis (FRED), Consumer Price Index CPIAUCNS, annual averages The story of the empty carts and the hired shoppers comes from Goldman's own later account (a 1977 CBS interview and his authorized 1978 biography). "About a million of today's dollars" is our math: Watson's 1950 income from the cart company converted with the CPI (1950 to 2024). The handle result is from one field study in one store. Subscribe for the stories behind the brands you know:    / @benbehindthebrand   Ben Behind the Brand explores surprising company stories, corporate rivalries, and the decisions that changed business.