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This car accessory would be a shopping cart with
retractable wheels custom fit to the trunk or
rear storage area.
The shopper would open the back, pull out the cart
and the wheels would drop down into position.
After filling up with groceries, just push it back
into the car and drive off. No
more transfering of bags
to car and no more returning of carts to cart corrals
(or shoving them behind the nearest car).
Probably would work best in a mini-van or SUV.
Doubles as a cargo bin when not hauling shopping bags.
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That's a really good idea. You should patent it. |
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I saw a "shopping cart" once that you could just drive to the store. Don't know if it was street-legal or not (probably not, alas) but the V8 in that thing looked powerful enough to drive a bus. |
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You can buy carts now that fold up into something not much larger than a briefcase - but not shopping specific. I have to wonder if it wouldn't just be something else for someone to steal. |
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Does anyone know if this would save the grocery store enough money to pass some savings on to me? |
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Good one! A whole new consumer product category, no doubt with all kinds of accessories. Because you own your cart, you could accept advertising on the sides. Here's a family group just like the one the advertiser wants to target. They have their own cart and take their appearance and behavior while shopping a little more seriously because they are being paid to place a placard on the side of their cart. People do notice what others are buying and do make judgements, usually while standing idly waiting to check out. |
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Base the design on ambulance stretchers. When pulled from the vehicle the legs pop down automatically, and fold up in the same manner when the thing is shoved into the back of the vehicle. |
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Great also for managing a cottage industry's output when the proprietor takes the product to a local farmer's market or craft fair. Getting the booth and product out of the vehicle and to the booth space are troublesome tasks. The cart or maybe a couple carts are vehicle options and thus use the cargo space efficiently because they were designed with the vehicle. And put the vehicle make on the cart, of course! |
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Oooooh! This reeks of one-upmanship! Can I get a Lincoln Navigator shopping cart label for my KIA Sportage cart? |
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You could also get personalized, recyclable shopping bags made up with appropriate labelling: the Smith's Expedition, the Henderson's Hummer, the Perry's Pathfinder, etc. |
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Couldn't we have a supermarket where the customers stand still and the produce goes by on carts? |
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pottedstu, I bet they have them in Japan. |
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Two things. Firstly, I really like this idea in theory, but in reallity no supermarket in the world is going to let people use thier own carts, liability and law suits etc.
Secondly, what do you do with it when you're not shopping? I thought it was only rough council estate homes that had a shopping trolley in their front gardens.
Always park next to a trolley park, that way you don't have to go far to dump it, and you don't get them left behind your car. |
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OK then, make these shopping carts the standard issue at supermarkets. Different 'corrals' for different types of car. |
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And supermarkets in Japan are like supermarkets in the rest of the world, only more mental. |
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Ford Transit + wheelchair ramps + tie-downs. |
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Then you can use the supermarekts own trolleys. |
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Fishboned I'm afraid. The effort saved (of transferring the trolley contents into the boot/trunk) is so minimal that it's not worth spending the money on your own trolley, and also I bet nobody here has actually measured the size of a trolley against a car. It's bigger than you think it is (bikes are also surprisingly large when you try to fit them into a vehicle).
If you design special trolleys that slot nicely into a normal-sized car, then they'd be sub-optimal for the purpose of being a trolley in a supermarket (mostly too small I'd guess); but my real objection is that people would want to use proper sized trolleys, and therefore be encouraged to buy SUVs for even more frivolous and pointless purposes than they already do.
I'm not completely against SUVs, I thing that for the purpose of sports and utilities such vehicles (or something like them) is entirely suitable, but for running the kids to school and moving groceries from the supermarket to the home, they are ridiculous. |
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Good idea, i kinda envisioned the strecher idea after I read the description, before I read what entrmanure said, but he said that in 2002 :) |
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Wire it for 12-volt, put blinkers and a hitch on it, and tow it instead! |
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That is a great idea. Have you patented and comercialize it? Where can I find it? Thankyou |
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A good idea. Just a little question: What if the owner of this cart lives on, say, the 5th floor of an old house without an elevator? It is very exhausting to carry the cart up the stairs. Maybe you could fit one of those three - wheel constructions on it which enable wheeled vehicles to climb stairs (poorly). + |
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