FIELD OF THE INVENTION

The invention relates to shopping carts, as offered to customers in Supermarkets and shopping centers.

The novelty is a detachable basket, that may be sold to the customer and be taken along, said basket to be slipped on telescopic struts on the carriage, which are easily to be adjusted to convenient height.

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION

One Problem when shopping in Supermarkets, particularly for elderly or handicapped persons, is to reload the shopping from the carriage into their car.

PRIOR ART

There had been quite a few propositions to overcome this, using shopping carts adjusted to the height of most car's trunk sill, so that the basket can be pushed into the trunk and be lowered for easy discharge, as proposed in US 7.80.844. However, these constructions are quite sophisticated and therefore more expensive than supermarkets would afford.

On the other hand, there would still be the need of discharging the basket and reload it into other containers, if not the grid would be opened and the goods simply be pushed into the trunk - what would hardly be done with delicate foodstuff. Reloading might even be more difficult into empty boxes if there is not place enough in the trunk for adequate sizes of containers together with the shopping cart's basket.

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION

It therefore is the object of the here disclosed invention to offer a system for easily loading and reloading the goods and particularly to avoid their discharge, without additional cost for the supermarket. This is achieved by splitting a shopping cart into two detachable parts: a carriage base and a light, but stiff basket to be mounted on it by simply slipping it on telescopic struts, the latter to be easily adjusted to convenient height.

In a preferred embodiment this is realized by two hydraulically damped telescopic struts with a crossbar, mounted at a light angle to the cart's base, with a release valve at their bases, which may be foot-controlled with a secondary crossbar between them.

The basket, for light weight and low cost preferably made of plastic material, simply slips over the upper crossbar to snap on.

So the shopping cart can first be charged with the goods at a most convenient height for shopping, then possibly adjusted to the cashier's level and outside the premises to the trunks sill, then lowered into the trunk without much effort, where the basket may be slipped off the crossbar quite easily as soon as the leading edge of the basket bears on the trunk's floor.

So the customer can carry goods most easily into his home, having the basket already loaded.

Plastic baskets may ordinarily be less appreciated in supermarkets, since the remains of spilled drinks and crashed fruit are more difficult to remove, but that is no obstacle, as long as the baskets do not need to be reused by other customers. The supermarket can limit its courtesy offer to the carriage base and sell simple baskets for it, which offers the opportunity for stronger customer ties by branding it.

Moreover, it is as well possible to use hereditary woven baskets, so to emphasize a nature-orientated appearance.

In a preferred embodiment of said invention the carriage base holds two spring- loaded hydraulically damped telescopic struts -as known from office chairs- with a crossbar connection on top, where the basket can simply be slipped over.

In a simpler version the struts may just consist of two interleaved tubes and means for fixing it together at different height, or just spring-loaded without hydraulic damping and breaking.

Said fixation can be done with snap-in notches or lock nuts or other fixation means for interleaved tubes, as well known in the art. DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

Fig. 1 shows a shopping cart according to the here disclosed invention, wherein the basket 1 is rested on the struts 3 and 4 , which are attached to the underbody 2 , said struts to be inserted into recesses 5, 7 of the basket 1. It further shows, that the handle of the basket 12 can be turned over to serve as handle bar for the cart.

Fig.2 a - f exemplifies the components and arrangements:

Fig. 2 a - c show the shopping cart with the basket adjusted to different height.

Fig.2e shows the base carriage with a crossbar 9 to connect the struts 3 and 4 and a bracket 11 to connect the hydraulic valves within said struts by foot control.

Fig. 2d shows a single basket with a hook-type recess 10, where the crossbar 9 can be snapped in.

Fig 2 f exemplifies the possibility to carry two baskets on one shopping cart, when lifting the upper basket as on Fig. 2a and installing a second basket on the base.