In 1937, Oklahoma City grocer Sylvan Goldman introduced a shopping cart that let customers buy more than they could carry in a basket. Shoppers largely ignored it. So Goldman hired people to push carts around his stores and pretend to shop, giving real customers a chance to see the unfamiliar invention in use.
Why shoppers resisted
Goldman had spotted a simple limit on grocery sales: when a hand basket grew heavy, people stopped picking up items. His early cart put two removable wire baskets on a wheeled, folding frame. It solved the carrying problem, but it looked nothing like the carts shoppers knew—because shoppers had never seen carts like it before. The Smithsonian’s collection record preserves an example of Goldman’s folding basket carriage.
The practical benefit wasn’t enough to win people over. Some men felt that using a cart made them look weak; some women thought pushing one felt too much like pushing a baby carriage. Rather than simply explain the invention again, Goldman decided to show it working in an ordinary shopping trip.
The shoppers who weren’t shopping
Goldman hired men and women to move through the stores with carts as though they were customers. Their job was to make cart use visible and unremarkable. According to History’s account of the shopping cart’s early days, customers began following their example, and within weeks the carts were being used across Goldman’s stores.
The cart kept evolving. Later designs could nest together for easier storage, but Goldman’s first hurdle was getting anyone to try one at all. His staged shoppers helped turn an awkward novelty into a familiar part of buying groceries. It’s a curious companion to another supermarket milestone: the first product scanned at a checkout was a pack of gum in 1974.