A Foursquare Future: You'll Never Shop Again Like You Did This Christmas

In the last few months, major retailers like Best Buy (BBY), eBay (EBAY) and JCPenny (JCP) have made radical moves to bring the online retail experience into brick-and-mortar stores. Their Trojan horse: the smartphone. If retailers can get shoppers to use their apps inside the store while shopping, then those retailers can deliver an "augmented" shopping experience.

But what would "augmented shopping look like?" And why would anyone want one?

To answer that question, we've put together a journey through the retail experience of 2015. It's a brave new world of augmented salespeople, credit card emulators, behavioral prediction, and hyper-targeted coupons -- but unlike Scrooge's visions, this one is already coming to pass.

Click here to proceed to the slideshow.