Your strategy is a good one but its actually what made the TVs less useful!
If you make the risky plays of trying to return a video or 2 between customers approaching the counter and hit the close shelf RNG then you can get a lot more mileage out of them.
I like the idea of the basket, I had a similar one with a 'tray on wheels' type item but spaghetti code might make it difficult to implement, I'll see how much time I have left after finishing the settings menu.