A virtual beacon system that provides proximity alerts is described. The proximity alerts are based on the location of a mobile device (100) and a location of interest. The method may include the steps of providing sensor readings for signals, calculating a mobile device location, determining the distance between a mobile device and a product location (202) and generating a proximity trigger (208). A described virtual beacon system includes a monitoring access point (104) for providing sensor readings and transmitting proximity triggers, a location cloud service (106) for calculating a mobile device (100) location and proximity alert service (108) for generating proximity triggers based on the mobile device location.