“…Telegraphe Cafe in New York will start testing Beacon soon. Anne Abikhzir, one of the owners of the coffee shop, expects the new gadget will 
increase check-ins and make the experience of buying coffee and pastries more personal for her customers…shoppers (can) complete their purchases using their phones and that data is collected and analyzed by retailers..”
EBay has spent many hours and lots of money pinpointing the locations of thousands of retail stores so the e-commerce company can capture sales from smartphone wielding shoppers. Now the company’s PayPal division is using a new technology know as Bluetooth Low Energy to get even more accurate location information inside stores through a gadget called Beacon.
The first PayPal employee tests of Beacon are happening at Spice Hut, a restaurant and food truck business in Silicon Valley, Telegraphe Cafe in New York and Get York Coffee in Sydney, Australia. Accurate location information is becoming more important as the rise of smartphones boosts mobile commerce brings the benefits of online shopping to physical stores.
That’s the retail holy grail that eBay and other technology and retail companies are fighting for. Apple released iBeacon location-based technology earlier this year, start-up Shopkick has installed location-based systems in major stores already and a group of the largest retailers, led by Wal-Mart, launched a mobile payments group last year called MCX.
For more: http://www.wltx.com/news/tech/article/257658/378/EBay-PayPal-Pinpoint-Stores-for-Mobile-Shopping
