Shopping cart system with automatic shopping item total calculator

1. A shopping cart system comprising:

a shopping cart including a receptacle to hold shopping items, said shopping cart having a shopping cart identity, said shopping items bearing coded data tags identifying a shopping item identity and a plurality of locations on the shopping item;

a scanning device mounted to the shopping receptacle and configured to:

scan a user identity card bearing coded data tags identifying a user identity; and

scan the data tags of the shopping items to determine the identity of the shopping items; and

a computer system configured to:

associate the user identity with the shopping cart identity at the start of a shopping session;

calculate the total cost of the scanned shopping items using the determined identity of the shopping items; and

dissociate the user identity from the shopping cart identity at the end of the shopping session,

wherein said scanning device is an optical scanning device configured for reading the coded data tags of both the user identity card and the product items.

2. A shopping cart system as claimed in claim 1 , wherein the computer system is mounted to the shopping receptacle and is configured to communicate the total cost to a cashier.

3. A shopping cart system as claimed in claim 1 , wherein the scanner is configured to transfer the determined identity of each item along with the shopping cart identity to the computer system, each time an item is added to the shopping receptacle.

4. A shopping cart system as claimed in claim 1 , wherein the scanning device is provided with a user interface to allow a shopping list of scanned shopping items to be displayed to the user.

5. A shopping cart system as claimed in claim 4 , wherein the user interface further allows product information relating to a particular item to be displayed, the product information including at least one of the following: manufacturer; item identity; expiry date; and nutritional information.

6. A shopping cart system as claimed in claim 4 , wherein the user interface is configured to allow the user to select items in the shopping list.

7. A shopping cart system as claimed in claim 1 , wherein the computer system is further configured to re-calculate the total cost when an item is removed from the receptacle by deducting the cost of the removed item from the previous total cost.

8. A shopping cart system as claimed in claim 1 , wherein the shopping receptacle is a basket and is further modified to include a weighing device that is configured to weigh items placed in the basket.