Shopping Cart Bag Hook Layout for External Grocery Support
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Solution Overview
Problem
Shopping carts often occupy more space than necessary due to full bags of groceries, leading to spillage, difficulty in transporting goods, and potential damage to fragile items, especially with flexible bags.
Innovation Solution
A shopping cart design featuring a wheeled base and a basket with hooks that allow bags to be hung along the sidewalls, reducing space constraints and minimizing the risk of damage to items.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Quantity of substance
If bags are placed inside the shopping cart basket, then the cart can transport groceries, but the cart occupies more space than necessary and risks crushing delicate groceries
Solution Approach 1:
The patent moves bags from the internal three-dimensional space of the basket to the external surface of the basket, utilizing the vertical and lateral dimensions of the basket exterior. This dimensional transition allows groceries to be transported without occupying valuable internal basket volume, effectively resolving the contradiction between storage capacity and cart space occupation.
Solution Approach 2:
The invention extracts bags from the internal basket compartment and repositions them on the external surface of the basket using attachment mechanisms (hooks, clips, or adhesive surfaces). This extraction eliminates the space-consuming effect of bags within the cart while maintaining their transport function, directly addressing the space occupation problem.
2Ease of operation
If flexible bags are used to transport groceries, then they are convenient for shopping, but they cause shifting and movement of goods resulting in products falling out
Solution Approach 1:
The patent introduces an intermediary attachment mechanism (hooks, clips, or adhesive surfaces on the basket) that mediates between the flexible bag and the rigid basket structure. This intermediary provides stable anchoring points that prevent bag shifting and goods spilling while preserving the flexibility and ease of use of the bags during the shopping process.
Solution Approach 2:
The attachment mechanisms are positioned and designed to counteract the natural tendency of flexible bags to shift and move during cart transport. By providing predetermined attachment points that resist movement forces, the system prevents the harmful effect of goods falling out before it can occur during normal shopping and transport activities.
3Quantity of substance
If multiple shopping carts are used to accommodate large quantities of goods, then storage capacity increases, but the complexity of managing and returning carts increases
Solution Approach 1:
The patent makes each shopping cart universally capable of accommodating large quantities of goods through external bag attachment, eliminating the need for specialized multi-cart configurations. This multi-functional capability allows a single cart to perform the work of multiple carts, simplifying cart management and return processes while maintaining high goods volume capacity.
Data Source
AI summary
A shopping cart includes a wheeled base and a basket. The basket is supported above a wheeled base and includes a hook. The basket defines a compartment, a top mouth open to the compartment, and an open slot positioned below the top mouth. The open slot is defined between a top edge and a bottom edge thereof, and the bottom edge is positioned opposite the top edge. The hook downwardly depends from the top edge of the open slot toward the bottom edge of the open slot to a free bottom end of the hook. The hook is configured to selectively receive a handle of a bag after the handle of the bag is wrapped around a portion of the basket defined between the open slot and the top mouth of the compartment, such that the bag selectively hangs along an outside surface of the basket opposite the compartment.