The first shopping cart was developed in 1937 by Sylvan Goldman, the owner of the Humpty Dumpty Supermarket chain in Oklahoma City.
Having purchased the bankrupt chain of retail grocers in the South in 1934, the tail end of the Great Depression, profit margins were smaller as people bought the cheaper items. His chain was facing ruin. Looking at ways to increase profits, he had noticed that shoppers did no further shopping when their carry basket was full. Invariably they took the basket to the cashier, rather than starting a new basket, weight seeming to be the determining factor. Pondering this in his office whilst looking at a chair in front of him, an ide developed. In the cartoons a light bulb suddenly switches on. His idea was to take the weight of the shopping basket out of the equation by adding wheels and a metal basket to a frame similar to a wooden folding chair. The final design allowed for the wire baskets to be removed from the frame and for the frame to be folded, like a chair, for storage and stacking.
