Consumer device based point-of-sale

#Embodiments of the invention relate, generally, to facilitating interactions between consumer devices and merchant point-of-sale devices.

#Financial transactions between merchants and consumers typically require the consumers to present a form of payment to the merchant. As a result, consumers may be required to keep wallets that include payment instruments such as cash, credit cards, debit cards, deal vouchers, coupons, reward tracking cards, checks or the like that may be accepted by merchants and/or their devices used at the point-of-sale (e.g., point-of-sale devices, such as cash registers, credit card readers, etc.). These payment instruments, in addition to being inconvenient to carry and use, also do not provide consumer information to merchants that can be leveraged to improve service. In this regard, areas for improving current systems have been identified. Through applied effort, ingenuity, and innovation, solutions to improve such systems have been realized and are described in connection with embodiments of the present invention.

#Systems, methods, and computer readable program code are provided to, in general, facilitate consumer location-based service at a merchant shop. For example, some embodiments may provide for a merchant device. The merchant device may include a display configured to present interactive displays, communications circuitry configured to facilitate communications with a consumer device and a central system, and processing circuitry. The processing circuitry may be configured to: wirelessly receive wallet identifying data from the consumer device; transmit the wallet identifying data to the central system; receive, from the central system, consumer identifying data associated with the wallet identifying data; and associate the consumer identifying data with a unit of location at a merchant shop.

#Having thus described some embodiments in general terms, reference will now be made to the accompanying drawings, which are not necessarily drawn to scale, and wherein:

#FIG. 1a shows a flow chart of an example method for determining the presence of a consumer, performed in accordance with some embodiments;

#FIG. 1b shows a flow chart of an example method for facilitating a financial transaction, performed in accordance with some embodiments;

#Embodiments will be described more fully hereinafter with reference to the accompanying drawings, in which some, but not all embodiments contemplated herein are shown. Indeed, various embodiments may be implemented in many different forms and should not be construed as limited to the embodiments set forth herein; rather, these embodiments are provided so that this disclosure will satisfy applicable legal requirements. Like numbers refer to like elements throughout.

#As used herein, the terms “data,” “content,” “information” and similar terms may be used interchangeably to refer to data capable of being captured, transmitted, received, displayed and/or stored in accordance with various example embodiments. Thus, use of any such terms should not be taken to limit the spirit and scope of the disclosure. Further, where a computing device is described herein to receive data from another computing device, it will be appreciated that the data may be received directly from the another computing device or may be received indirectly via one or more intermediary computing devices, such as, for example, one or more servers, relays, routers, network access points, base stations, and/or the like. Similarly, where a computing device is described herein to send data to another computing device, it will be appreciated that the data may be sent directly to the another computing device or may be sent indirectly via one or more intermediary computing devices, such as, for example, one or more servers, relays, routers, network access points, base stations, and/or the like.

#Embodiments discussed herein may be configured to allow a merchant device at a merchant's shop to communicate with a consumer device carried by a consumer to enhance consumer service. One example of a suitable type of merchant discussed herein is a dine-in restaurant. As such, while many of the example embodiments are described herein in the context of a dine-in restaurant, they may be readily extended to other types of merchants by a person of ordinary skill in the art. For example, some embodiments described herein may utilize a dine-in location (e.g., a table) at a restaurant but the techniques disclosed herein are also suitable to other units of location, such as a kiosk, aisle, information desk, display, counter, or the like at a retail store, restaurant, or any other type of merchant shop that serves consumers.