Shopping cart detection

A method for monitoring cart activity in a shopping facility, the method comprising:

• accumulating, by a cart while the cart traverses the shopping facility, a ferrous material, wherein the material is distributed about the shopping facility;
• collecting, by a point-of-sale device of a terminal, sales data for a transaction associated with the cart;
• receiving, at a collection device of the terminal, the material that was collected throughout the shopping facility by the cart;
• measuring, by a measurement device including a scale, an amount of the material received from the cart;
• determining, by a control circuit based on the sales data for the transaction associated with the cart, an indication of items associated with the cart that were purchased;
• and
• correlating, by the control circuit, the items associated with the cart that were purchased and the amount of the material that was received from the cart.

A method for monitoring cart activity in a shopping facility, the method comprising:

• accumulating, by a cart while the cart traverses the shopping facility, a ferrous material, wherein the material is distributed about the shopping facility;
• collecting, by a point-of-sale device of a terminal, sales data for a transaction associated with the cart;
• receiving, at a collection device of the terminal, the material that was collected throughout the shopping facility by a cart;
• measuring, by a measurement device, an amount of the material that was received from the cart;
• determining, by a control circuit, an approximate time that the cart was in the shopping facility based, at least in part, on the amount of the material that was received from the cart;
• and
• determining, by the control circuit based on the sales data for a transaction associated with the cart, an indication of items associated with the cart that were purchased.