Shopping Trolley Size and Customer Behaviour

by Craig Pryce December 19, 2025

Size is an important factor when choosing new supermarket shopping trolleys for your store. Considerations around suitable sizes and styles help improve convenience for your customers, but they can also strategically maximise sales.

A small shopping trolley might be more practical in smaller stores, as it makes navigating narrow aisles easier. Yet, research shows that a large shopping trolley encourages customers to spend more.

In this guide, we look at some examples of standard shopping trolley sizes and the impacts they can have on your retail business.

How do shopping trolley sizes impact buying habits?

Shopping trolley sizes can range from a small, lightweight option with less than 100L capacity, right up to a large-capacity shopping trolley of over 200L. The middle ground for supermarket trolley size is around 150L, and there are different effects on customer behaviour as you move either side of that capacity.

Generally, bigger trolleys subconsciously encourage shoppers to add more to their cart as there’s more space to fill. As smaller trolleys fill up faster, they don’t have the same impact.

Even just the appearance of a large trolley with only a few items at the bottom can affect consumer psychology. Many shoppers may feel compelled to add more to their cart, so it looks less empty.

Benefits of bigger trolleys

A large shopping trolley size has effects across the board on customer behaviour. In the past, research has shown that consumers with large supermarket trolleys:

• Shop for longer.

• Buy more products.

• Spend more in total.

While these effects have been known for years, they still hold true. In 2024, a study presented at the European Marketing Academy Spring Conference showed this to be the case.

In their paper, the researchers wrote: "Our studies provide very practical suggestions for retailers to increase their profits, by simply adjusting the size of the shopping carts in the store."

Convenience stores may prefer customers to complete their visits quickly, especially at peak times. However, big out-of-town supermarkets might want to provide larger trolleys to keep customers on-site, shopping, and spending for longer.

Smaller supermarket trolley uses

There are plenty of practical reasons to consider a small shopping trolley in your store. They’re beneficial for elderly customers, top-up shoppers, and convenience stores with less space.

In the European market, for instance, space efficiency and sustainability are both priorities, making small metal shopping trolleys a good option.

This is often the case in city centre 'metro' supermarkets, which may operate within the size constraints of premises that weren’t purpose-built for shops.

For example, in a forecast of the global metal shopping cart market for 2025-32, Intel Market Research notes that supermarkets including Tesco "increasingly adopt compact, foldable designs to optimise store layouts in urban areas".

A small, lightweight shopping trolley fleet can also benefit employees. The same report states that lighter nesting supermarket trolleys reduce injury risks when retrieving empty carts.

Standard shopping trolley sizes

Standard shopping trolley sizes range from small, lightweight options with around 71L capacity, right up to large-capacity shopping trolleys that can carry up to 210L of goods.

With several options in between, it's not just a question of big vs small shopping trolleys – it's about what works best for your store, customers, and staff. At Wheelie Bin Solutions, we supply matching supermarket trolleys in a range of sizes for your business.

Find out more about each of the available shopping trolley sizes:

• 71L shopping trolley

• 100L shopping trolley

• 150L shopping trolley

• 210L shopping trolley

Of course, you're not limited to just one shopping trolley size for your store. The matching design allows you to choose any combination of large, medium, and small supermarket trolleys to suit your needs.

What to consider for the best shopping trolley sizes

There's a long list of things to consider when choosing suitable supermarket trolley sizes for your organisation. We've picked out a few key factors below, including the items you sell, the layout of your store, and the demographics of the customers you cater to.

Product range

Your most popular product lines can directly influence your choice of shopping trolley size. Edge-of-town retail-park supermarkets are likely to sell big, bulky, and heavy items, often including large electrical goods. Larger trolleys are essential to accommodate such goods easily, so customers have little problem pushing them around the store.

City centre supermarkets may instead target the lunchtime crowd and those who live locally. This can include shoppers who need more capacity than a hand basket but still want the convenient handling of a small shopping trolley as they grab a few single-portion food items.

Store layout

The layout of your store is particularly relevant when choosing a supermarket trolley size. Shopping trolleys have exceptional manoeuvrability, thanks to their 360-degree castors, but there are physical limits on the width of aisles and corners that they can navigate.

It's always worth remembering that customers need to be able to pass each other in your aisles too. Therefore, the size and configuration of your shop floor is the first place to look when deciding on the practical upper limit of supermarket trolley sizes you can accommodate.

Customer demographics

Shopper demographics can range from the grab-and-go urban lunchtime crowd right through to offering a small shopping trolley for elderly customers. Many older shoppers might prefer to do a top-up shop several times a week and benefit from a lighter trolley to push.

Families will likely want the biggest supermarket trolley size possible to do a big weekly shop. If your aisles can accommodate two 210L shopping trolleys side-by-side, then it's probably a good idea to have some of the largest trolleys available to maximise sales and spending.

Choose suitable-sized shopping trolleys for your business

At Wheelie Bin Solutions, we supply supermarket shopping trolleys in various combinations of size and number, so you can build your shopping trolley fleet exactly the way you want it.

Find a suitable option, whether that's a selection of 71L and 100L trolleys for a convenience store, a combination of 150L and 210L trolleys for a large supermarket, or a mix of all four to suit different customer demographics. 

This is also an excellent opportunity to trial a new shopping trolley size and see how your customers respond before investing in a full-scale fleet of the most effective size.

With sturdy and sustainable galvanised steel construction, colourful protective plastic corner bumpers, and that all-important toddler seat on 100L, 150L, and 210L trolleys, our nesting supermarket trolleys have plenty to offer and are available for immediate dispatch.