System and methods for shopping in a physical store

A non-transitory computer-readable medium storing instructions that, when executed by one or more computer processing units, cause a computer processing system to perform operations comprising:

• activating a shopping session for a customer, wherein activating the shopping session includes linking the customer to a cart system for a duration of the shopping session, the cart system mechanically coupled to the shopping cart;
• during the shopping session:
• capturing image data of the inside of a shopping cart;
• processing the image data to detect one or more events and, for each event, determining an event type, the event type being an item addition event involving addition of an item to the shopping cart or an item removal event involving removal of the item from the shopping cart;
• responsive to detecting an event:
• processing the image data to identify an item associated with the event;
• retrieving item information with respect to the identified item, the information including at least an item name;
• updating cart information based on the identified item, the identified event type and the retrieved item information, the cart information including at least a record of items currently in the shopping cart;
• and
• displaying the updated cart information on a display,
• wherein in order to limit unnecessary battery drain, linking the customer to the cart system further includes determining a location of the cart system, and wherein establishing the shopping session is performed at least in part in response to determining that the location of the cart system is within a threshold distance of a location of the physical store.