That's nasty. If I expect my goods to fit into a hand basket, I grab one. Better maneuverability in a crowd.

Did they get rid of free plastic bags at checkout earlier?

I ask because some Walmarts got rid of hand baskets. When they stopped providing free plastic bags at checkout there was a big rise in people carrying their purchases out in the hand baskets and then not returning the baskets. Those stores often decided to stop replacing the baskets.

I would not be surprised if the same thing happened at other stores.

No nothing else changed. I suspect the idea is if you have a cart of some size they expect you’ll buy more because you can fit it or it looks emptier.

Some kind of psychological thing.

Tesco stores in Slovakia have the anti-theft alarm thingies on hand baskets and you can't leave the store without tripping the alarm... There are multiple solutions to every problem.

I wonder if it's based on demographics? Here in Waxahachie, TX, there are no hand baskets at all, however speaking to people with a similar background to me in other states where they are a larger part of the population, and hand baskets can be easily found everywhere.