Near-field communication (NFC)-based retail experience using a retail kiosk or mobile device

A retail kiosk comprising:

• a display unit;
• a user-input interface;
• a near field communication (NFC) reader;
• a network communication interface for communicating across a network;
• a processor;
• and
• a memory storing instructions which, when executed by the processor, cause the retail kiosk to provide an NFC-based retail experience to a customer by performing functions to:
• establish an NFC-based communication link with an NFC-compatible user device that is placed in the vicinity of the NFC reader;
• receive customer identifying information from the user device over the NFC-based communication link,
• authenticate the customer with an authentication server of a mobile wireless network provider;
• upon successfully authenticating the customer, retrieve retail information associated with the customer from a back-end server of the mobile wireless network provider using the network communication interface;
• and
• provide a personalized retail experience to the customer based on the retrieved retail information associated with the customer,
• wherein the function to provide the personalized retail experience to the customer includes functions to:
• retrieve information related to a first product or service associated with a first NFC tag detected by an NFC reader of the user device;
• receive, at the retail kiosk from the user device via a wireless network communication interface of the user device, information regarding compatibility of the first product or service with a second product or service ;
• and
• display, on the retail kiosk, the information regarding the compatibility of the first product or service with the second product or service.