EP2051895A1

EP2051895A1 - A shopping cart

Info

Publication number: EP2051895A1
Application number: EP07794105A
Authority: EP
Inventors: Kristiina Starck
Original assignee: Individual
Current assignee: Individual
Priority date: 2006-08-09
Filing date: 2007-08-07
Publication date: 2009-04-29
Also published as: SE0601658L; SE530203C2; EP2051895A4; WO2008018824A1

Abstract

A shopping cart comprising a goods basket carried by an underframe (10) that has wheels (20) for driving on a ground (3). The underframe (10) is in the form of a fork having a liftable beam (50) along the respective fork finger (11), wherein a perambulator (40) can be run in over the forks and be lifted by the beams (50).

Description

A shopping cart

The invention relates to a shopping cart of the kind that is defined in the preamble of claim 1.

In hypermarkets and similar retail sales establishments, it is cumbersome for a lone person, during a purchase round, to bring a perambulator or baby carriage as well as a shopping cart borrowed in the hypermarket and in which purchased commodities are to be transported.

From practice, it is known to either couple the perambulator behind the shopping cart, or couple the shopping cart behind the perambulator, in both cases by means of a cou- pling that is rotatable around a vertical shaft. Both the perambulator and the shopping cart roll by their own wheels on the ground/floor. But the known constructions are cumbersome to use.

Therefore, an object of the invention is to provide a shopping cart that is convenient to use as a shopping cart and that also allows transportation of the perambulator, and also allows simple combination with and detachment of the perambulator. An additional object of the invention is to provide a shopping cart that also, in the absence of a perambulator, has a design that is favourable for the transportation of commodities of goods on the parts of the shopping cart that otherwise are blocked by a perambulator.

The object is entirely or partly attained by the invention.

The invention is defined in the appended independent claim 1.

The lifting-fork structure is advantageous since it, in the absence of a perambulator, may be utilized for carrying and transporting pallet-supported goods. In the following, the invention will be described by way of examples, reference being made to the appended drawing.

Figure 1 schematically shows a side view of a shopping cart. Figure 2 shows a schematic partial cross section, taken along the line II— II in Figure 1. Figure 3 shows a schematic side view of another inventive embodiment of the shopping cart. Figure 4 schematically shows a partial section, taken along the line IV-IV in Figure 3.

In Figure 1, a shopping cart is shown comprising an underframe 10 that carries wheels 20, at least some of which are turnable around vertical axes and they are run on a plane horizontal ground 3. The underframe 10 has a handle 11 for pulling or pushing. The shopping cart also has a goods basket 12. Furthermore, the underframe 10 of the cart carries a platform 30 on which a perambulator 40 can be put up. Preferably, the plat- form 30 has a ramp 32 that slopes obliquely downward from an end edge of the preferably rectangular platform 30. The free edge of the ramp 32 is arranged to lie on or close by the ground in the lowered state thereof.

The ramp 32 is supported by the shopping cart via a pivot joint 33 in the vicinity of the edge of the platform 30, and can then be turned up into a raised position shown by dashed lines. In this way, the risk that the free edge of the ramp 32 should hurt fellow cart-users is reduced. Furthermore, in the raised position, the ramp 32 may form a roll- off prevention for the perambulator from the platform 30. In one embodiment, the ramp 32 may be spring-loaded toward the raised position. If the ramp 32 is fixedly fitted on the shopping cart, the free edge of the ramp 32 should naturally be situated at a small distance above the floor surface 3.

From Figure 2, it can be understood that the platform 30 as well as the ramp 32 may have a width that is greater than the wheel distance of the wheels of perambulators 40 available on the market. In the absence of a perambulator 40, the platform 30 may naturally be utilized for supporting commodities/goods.

In Figure 3, an embodiment is shown in which the underframe 10 is in the form of a fork that supports a pair of parallelly fixed and mutually horizontally spaced-apart fork fingers 11 , which are supported by wheels 20 in a way conventional per se. On each fixed fork finger 11, there is a lifting beam 50 coupled to the respective fork finger 11 by means of a pair of links 51. Such as is shown in Figure 3, the beams 5 may be interconnected. Upon a displacement of the beams 50 obliquely upward to the left in Figure 3, the beams 50 will be lifted in relation to the fork fingers 11 and the wheels 20.

The displacement motion of the beams 50 may be generated by a simple lever-link mechanism of the kind that is illustrated in Figure 3, yjz. a vertical lever mounted in the lower end thereof on the underframe 10 by means of a bearing mounting 60. Above the bearing mounting 60 of the lever 70, a link 62 is turnably connected to the rear ends of the beams 50, as well as to the lever 70 at a small distance above the lower pivot mounting 60 thereof. Accordingly, the lever 70 can be turned in the longitudinal direction of the cart, and furthermore there is an indicated locking device 75, by means of which the lever 70 can be locked in a turning position corresponding to that the beams 50 are elevated.

When the beams 50 are lowered and rest on the fork fingers 11, the forks of the shopping cart including the beams 50 resting thereon can be run in under the wheel-shaft shanks 41 of the perambulator 40, since the wheels 42 of the perambulator have such a diameter that the shaft shanks 41 are situated above the surface of the lowered beams 50. Since the lifting beams 50 rest against the usually non-rotatable wheel-shaft shanks 41 or against the underframe of the perambulator 40, no retaining mechanism is normally required to retain the perambulator 40 on the lifting beams 50.

Claims

Claim

1. A shopping cart comprising a goods basket carried by an underframe (10) that has wheels (20) for driving on a ground (3), characterized in that the underframe (10) comprises a fork having a pair of generally parallel and generally horizontal fingers (11) each of which carrying a beam (50), the beams being generally parallel and horizontal and can be lifted in parallel from the fork fingers by means of a lifting device (51, 62, 60, 70), whereby the fork fingers of the shopping cart including the beams (50) can be run in under the underframe or shaft shanks of the perambulator, or the perambulator (40) can be driven forward on the ground over the fork fingers (11) with lowered beams, in order to subsequently be lifted by means of the lifting device.