Shopping facility assistance systems, devices and methods

A method for bringing a shopping container to a customer in a shopping space comprising:

• receiving, at a control circuit, a shopping container request from a user interface device associated with the customer;
• determining, by the control circuit, at least one available shopping container among a plurality of shopping containers based on data collected by a plurality of sensors communicatively coupled to the control circuit, the at least one available shopping container being empty and not used by another customer;
• selecting, by the control circuit, an available shopping container from the at least one available shopping container based at least on a location information of the user interface device;
• selecting, by the control circuit, a motorized transport unit from among a plurality of motorized transport units communicatively coupled to the control circuit to transport the available shopping container;
• and
• providing, by the control circuit, instructions from the control circuit to the motorized transport unit to bring the available shopping container to the customer.

An apparatus for providing a shopping container for a customer in a shopping space comprising:

• a non-transitory storage medium storing a set of computer readable instructions;
• and
• a control circuit configured to execute the set of computer readable instructions which causes to the control circuit to:
• receive a shopping container request from a user interface device associated with the customer;
• determine at least one available shopping container among a plurality of shopping containers based on data collected by a plurality of sensors communicatively coupled to the control circuit, the at least one available shopping container being empty and not used by another customer;
• select an available shopping container from the at least one available shopping container based at least on a location information of the user interface device;
• select a motorized transport unit from among a plurality of motorized transport units communicatively coupled to the control circuit to transport the shopping container;
• and
• provide instructions to the motorized transport unit to bring the available shopping container to the customer.