Patent ID: 8010417

Claim:
A method, comprising: receiving from a first merchant at a central controller, first inventory data of a product; receiving from a second merchant at the central controller, second inventory data of the product; displaying, via a Web site associated with the central controller, the first inventory data and the second inventory data of the product and a purchase price for the product; receiving, via the Web site, a request from a buyer to purchase the product for the purchase price from the first merchant; receiving, by the central controller, the purchase price from the buyer; receiving, via the Web site, credit card information and identification information descriptive of the buyer; storing, by the central controller, the credit card information and the identification information descriptive of the buyer in a customer database; transmitting, by the central controller, a transaction confirmation indicator to the buyer; receiving, by the central controller, after the transmitting of the transaction confirmation indicator and from a POS device of a store location of the first merchant, a query including an indication of at least one of the transaction confirmation indicator, the credit card information, and the identification information descriptive of the buyer; and transmitting, by the central controller, in response to the receiving of the query, and to the POS device of the store location of the first merchant, information that permits the buyer to physically acquire the product at the store location of the first merchant wherein the information comprises at least an indication of the purchase price.