Shaw’s has wised up to the trick of using a basket instead of a shopping cart to physically limit your grocery purchases, and they’ve come up with a creative workaround: convertible baskets that you can drag behind you on wheels when they become too heavy to carry.

“This allows them the possibility to move inside the store without having to carry all the items in their hands with the handheld baskets,” spokeswoman Judy Chong said. “When you’re picking up a half gallon of milk and two-liter bottles of soda, it gets heavy.”

According to their North American distributor, another big benefit of being able to pull the Shop n’ Roll baskets is that they prompt some shoppers to load them with more groceries, instead of perhaps heading to the checkout when carrying them becomes fatiguing.

“They promote more items being purchased,” said George Braeunig, who handles North American sales for distributor SCS Inc. in Boca Raton, Fla.

We like it. It’s like a basket and a shopping cart had a little baby. You should just be aware that there’s an intentional “buy more stuff” side effect if you’re not careful.

“Shaw’s rolls out baskets with wheels” [Boston Herald] (Thanks to Henry!)
(Photo: Larsz)

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