The Unwanted Convenience: How Hired Actors and a Folding Chair Sold the World on the Shopping Cart

The now-ubiquitous shopping cart was initially a flop. Invented by grocer Sylvan Goldman in 1937 from a folding chair design, it was rejected by men as effeminate and by women as an insult to their strength. He hired actors to popularize its use.

Inventions & Discoveries Business & Economics History

The Weight of a Good Idea

In the heart of the Great Depression, Sylvan Goldman, owner of the Humpty Dumpty grocery chain in Oklahoma, faced a peculiar problem of his own success. He observed a recurring, frustrating pattern in his aisles: customers would stop shopping the moment their hand-held wicker or wire baskets became too heavy or cumbersome. A full basket, he realized, wasn't just a sign of a good sale; it was a physical barrier to further sales. The solution, which would eventually revolutionize retail worldwide, wasn't born in a high-tech lab but from a moment of quiet observation and a humble piece of office furniture: a wooden folding chair.

An Invention No One Asked For

One evening in 1936, staring at a folding chair, Goldman had his epiphany. What if, he mused, a customer didn't have to carry the basket at all? He envisioned a mobile version of the chair—a frame on wheels. He imagined one basket resting on the seat and another on the rack below. With the help of a store handyman, Fred Young, Goldman tinkered. Their first prototype was a clunky but functional contraption made from a folding chair frame, four caster wheels, and two wire baskets. He called it the "Folding Basket Carrier," patenting it in 1940.

On June 4, 1937, Goldman proudly rolled out his new invention in his Humpty Dumpty stores, anticipating a wave of customer gratitude. Instead, he was met with a resounding thud of indifference and outright disdain. The shopping cart was an immediate and spectacular failure. The very customers he sought to help rejected the device, but the reasons were rooted more in psychology than practicality.

The Psychology of Rejection

Goldman quickly discovered he hadn't just invented a tool; he had inadvertently challenged deeply held social norms. Men, the primary shoppers in many households at the time, viewed pushing a wheeled basket as effeminate. For them, true strength was demonstrated by carrying their own load. One man reportedly told Goldman,

"I have pushed my last baby buggy."

To accept the cart was to admit a lack of virility. Women, on the other hand, had a different but equally strong objection. Many felt the device was a slight, implying they weren't strong enough to manage their own shopping. Younger women, in particular, were aghast at the comparison to pushing a baby carriage. Decades of self-reliance and managing a household were, in their eyes, being undermined by this wheeled nanny.

Marketing as Theater

A lesser entrepreneur might have abandoned the project, relegating the carts to a dusty warehouse. But Goldman was not only an inventor; he was a master of showmanship. If customers wouldn't use the carts on their own, he would create the illusion that they were already wildly popular. He devised a brilliant, if theatrical, marketing strategy: he hired actors.

Goldman employed a team of "shoppers"—men and women of all ages—to wander his stores, pushing the carts with practiced ease and enthusiasm. These models would fill their baskets, smiling, demonstrating the cart's convenience to the real, hesitant customers. Seeing these attractive and confident people using the invention began to chip away at the public's resistance. It provided crucial social proof, transforming the cart from a strange, emasculating contraption into a modern, desirable convenience. To seal the deal, Goldman also stationed a friendly greeter at the entrance of each store. Her job was not just to welcome shoppers but to offer them a cart directly, explaining,

"Look, everyone is using the new carts. Why don't you try one?"

From Flop to Foundation

The strategy worked. Within weeks, the social stigma evaporated, replaced by genuine demand. The unwanted invention became an indispensable tool. Goldman founded the Folding Carrier Corporation to mass-produce his creation, which eventually made him a multimillionaire. While the design would later be refined by others—most notably with Orla Watson's invention of the telescoping "nesting" cart in 1946—it was Sylvan Goldman's insight into human psychology, and his willingness to stage a little retail theater, that ensured the shopping cart didn't become a forgotten footnote in the history of failed inventions.

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