shopping cart

noun

1

: a metal or plastic cart with four small wheels that is used for holding merchandise when shopping (as at a supermarket or department store)

… about the only amenities besides the jumbo-sized shopping carts are a few flatbed dollies to allow shoppers to get large appliances like refrigerators and washing machines to the cash register and then out to the parking lot.

—Jean Crichton

2

: a temporary record of items selected for eventual purchase from an online vendor's website

To set up shop on the Internet, you need a commerce-enabled Web site, which includes the electronic shopping cart; a connection to the credit card network; and finally, a merchant account …

—Tom Negrino

Delivery charges are the No. 1 reason shoppers abandon a virtual shopping cart, according to Jupiter Media Metrix. Every Internet shopper has a shipping-charge horror story.

—Ellen Neuborn

Examples of shopping cart in a Sentence

Recent Examples on the Web

As for oral care, don’t miss out on the Oral-B Pro 1000 Rechargeable Electric Toothbrush that’s been added to more than 30,000 shopping carts in the past few weeks. —Isabel Garcia, People.com, 1 Jan. 2025

Seventh-grader Kyle Holcomb took off and gave 4-year-old Amy a rainbow necklace, which Amy then put happily in her shopping cart. —Nicole Villalpando, Austin American-Statesman, 27 Dec. 2024

What To Know Eric Trump's post showed map outlines of the Panama Canal, Greenland and Canada as items in an Amazon shopping cart, along with a mock-up of his father looking at his phone with the same Amazon app screen open. —Andy Biggs, Newsweek, 24 Dec. 2024

Costco e-commerce Customers push shopping carts through a Costco store on December 11, 2024 in Novato, California. —Sara Salinas, CNBC, 13 Dec. 2024

Word History

First Known Use

1934, in the meaning defined at sense 1