The shopping cart has been around for close to a hundred years.

New research suggests it may be due for an update.

Those shopping cart handles that drive like a wheelbarrow increase people's willingness to spend, according to recent research out of Europe.

The reason may be biological -- traditional carts activate our triceps or pushing muscles.

The wheelbarrow cart engages the biceps the muscles we associate with pulling motions.

“Throughout our lives, we develop an association between pushing things away and things that we don't like, and we form an association between pulling things toward us and things that we do like,” said Zachary Estes at the City University of London.

“Once that association is developed, the theory goes, it can be flipped so that if you activate the muscles involved with pulling something towards you, it actually increases your liking of that thing,” Estes said.

In field tests, people spent more money using the wheelbarrow handles on a shopping trip, but they didn't like the new handles as much as the old ones.

“There's this conflict for the retailers where consumers say, ‘ah, I don't really like these weird handles.’ But on the other hand, they're getting these increased sales,” Estes said.

It's unclear whether this research will motivate stores to adopt an updated shopping cart. A few manufacturers and stores are reportedly interested but have not made a commitment.

WASHINGTON (AP) — American consumers faced a third straight monthly surge in prices in June, the latest evidence that a rapid reopening of the economy is fueling pent-up spending for goods and services that in many cases remain in short supply.

Tuesday’s report from the Labor Department showed that consumer prices in June rose 0.9% from May and 5.4% over the past year — the sharpest 12-month inflation spike since June 2008.

Excluding volatile oil and gas prices, so-called core inflation rose 4.5% in the past year, the largest increase since November 1991.

The pickup in inflation, which has coincided with the economy’s rapid recovery from the pandemic recession, has heightened concerns that the Federal Reserve might feel compelled to begin withdrawing its low-interest rate policies earlier than expected.

If so, that would risk weakening the economy and potentially derailing the recovery. Fed officials have repeatedly said, though, that they regard the surge in inflation as a temporary response to supply shortages and other short-term disruptions as the economy quickly bounces back.