Department stores try carts

Store Equipment & Design, Jan, 2000

Department store chains are beginning to adopt a basic piece of supermarket and discount store equipment: the shopping cart.

In mass-market retail stores, the average shopper with a cart buys 7.2 items, while a shopper without a cart buys 6.1 items, according to studies from America's Research Group, Charleston, S.C.

The Wall Street Journal reports that the country's top six department store chains all saw a same-store sales increase of less than five percent this year, with one--J.C. Penney--showing a sales decline. The top six discount retailers, meanwhile, all saw same-store sales increases of five percent or more, led by Costco, which saw a gain of more than 12 percent.

While this difference can't entirely be attributed to shopping carts, a few department store retailers--armed with their own surveys indicating shoppers would buy more if they could just carry it all--have added or begun testing carts.

Montgomery Ward & Co. and Sears, Roebuck & Co. are testing scaled-down, black nylon-and-steel carts that can convert into strollers--the same type used for the past four years by booming clothing retailer Kohl's Corp.

The carts, from Central Specialties Ltd., Crystal Lake, Ill., fit department stores' tight merchandise layouts as well as specifications from clothing suppliers: Kohl's switched to this model to persuade Levi Strauss & Co.--concerned for its image--to allow it to sell the Dockers brand of casual clothes.

"We have found there just seems to be a need to fill that gap," said Central Specialties co-owner Susan Maher. "You go to a department store for one item and then you see something else you want. Pretty soon, your arms are loaded. Add a child to this equation, and it's easy to see the need."