Patent ID: 8175923

Claim:
A computer readable medium containing a computer program product for accelerating sales transactions of customers in a retail store, comprising: program instructions that read a customer payment card number at a customer checkout accelerator; program instructions that determine a preapproval amount for the sales transaction; program instructions that display the preapproval sales transaction amount to the customer on the customer checkout accelerator for acceptance; program instructions that transmit the preapproval amount to an external card services system for approval; program instructions that store the approval amount in a preapproval cache at a point of sales terminal for use in completing the sales transaction; program instructions that transmit the preapproval amount from the customer checkout accelerator to a store controller; program instructions that place an entry in a preapproval database if the external card services system approves the transaction amount; program instructions that notify a point of sales terminal of the approval amount; program instructions that determine if the payment card is one or more of a credit card, a debit card, a customer loyalty card, an electronic/Internet wallet or an electronic gift certificate; and program instructions that determine a preapproval amount that is based on an actual purchase history for the customer if the payment card is a customer loyalty card.