Multi-level personal hand cart

A method for deterring theft of “conventional” shopping carts from market premises, the “conventional” shopping carts being of the kind typically owned or leased, and stocked, by markets to enable customers, who have come to the market premises to obtain goods, to transport the purchased goods from storage or display areas in the market to check-out areas and then to the customers' vehicles, said method further serving the needs of customers to have carts to transport their purchases to their homes after a shopping experience at the markets, the needs of the markets to retain the “conventional” carts at the market premises, and the needs of vendors of products and services to the markets to be recognized by the shopping public, said method comprising the steps of:

• providing a “non-conventional” personal shopping cart to the customer for purchase by the customer, said “non-conventional” shopping cart being of the kind that can be lawfully removed by the customer from the market premises,
• marking said “non-conventional” shopping cart with information identifying the customer as the owner of the cart,
• marking the “non-conventional” shopping cart with information identifying one or more vendors of services or products offered or sold at the market, and
• providing the customer with discounts on said services or products offered or sold by said one or more vendors at said market.