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Walmart Still Doesn't Accept Apple Pay in U.S. Despite Many Customer Requests

So, here you go....as of August 2022:

90% of U.S. retailers take Apple Pay

20% of U.S. retail payments are NFC.

That indicates that almost all retailers are willing, but the vast majority of customers simply DON'T CARE.

If Walmart ever needed a reason to not bother upgrading to NFC terminals and accepting Apple Pay, there it is. Customers don't "demand" it and the incentive to offer it is lacking.

www.nfcw.com

Three quarters of iPhone users in the US have now enabled Apple Pay

research by Loup Ventures has revealed that three quarters of iPhone users in the US have now enabled Apple Pay
www.nfcw.com www.nfcw.com

Now, if Walmart, Lowe's and Home Depot accepted Apple Pay, would that percentage of NFC payments go way up? Possibly. But they don't, and they have no incentive to make a move here.

Should govt REQUIRE them to? HELL no.
 
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monstermash said:
So, here you go....as of August 2022:

90% of U.S. retailers take Apple Pay

20% of U.S. retail payments are NFC.

That indicates that almost all retailers are willing, but the vast majority of customers simply DON'T CARE.

If Walmart ever needed a reason to not bother upgrading to NFC terminals and accepting Apple Pay, there it is. Customers don't "demand" it and the incentive to offer it is lacking.

www.nfcw.com

Three quarters of iPhone users in the US have now enabled Apple Pay

research by Loup Ventures has revealed that three quarters of iPhone users in the US have now enabled Apple Pay
www.nfcw.com www.nfcw.com

Now, if Walmart, Lowe's and Home Depot accepted Apple Pay, would that percentage of NFC payments go way up? Possibly. But they don't, and they have no incentive to make a move here.

Should govt REQUIRE them to? HELL no.
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So by your logic, no retailers should bother implementing NFC because only 1 in 5 use it? I wonder what percentage of retail payments are checks? Remember those? Yet Home Depot, Walmart and Lowes take checks, yes?
 
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dmylrea said:
So by your logic, no retailers should bother implementing NFC because only 1 in 5 use it? I wonder what percentage of retail payments are checks? Remember those? Yet Home Depot, Walmart and Lowes take checks, yes?
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No, by my logic, retailers don't seem to have much incentive to take on a big expense of upgrading to NFC terminals, given the lack of customer demand, and lack of clear benefits for them to do so.

I have no idea what retail establishments take checks, since I have not written such a check since 1993.
 
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monstermash said:
No, by my logic, retailers don't seem to have much incentive to take on a big expense of upgrading to NFC terminals, given the lack of customer demand, and lack of clear benefits for them to do so.

I have no idea what retail establishments take checks, since I have not written such a check since 1993.
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Where did you get your stats? Just curious. Here is a completely different set of stats that say 80% of consumers used contactless payments in 2021.

fitsmallbusiness.com

27 Contactless Payments Statistics for 2024

Contactless payments are essential today. Here are the latest contactless payment statistics so you can utilize them for your business.
fitsmallbusiness.com fitsmallbusiness.com

Summary:

1. From 2019 to 2020, there was a 150% increase in contactless payment transactions
2. In 2021, over 80% of US consumers used contactless payments
3. The US now has the most contactless cards of any market in the world
4. The global contactless payment market is projected to nearly quadruple in value by 2026
5. 67% of US retailers offer shoppers some form of contactless payment (this differs from your stat of 90%)
 
Dazamcc said:
I'm from the UK and can't imagine a shop not accepting contactless payments. America seems so backwards sometimes.
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The British Empire sunsetted some time ago man. It's OK.

In the meantime, NFC was invented by one of them thar backward Americans:

Charles Walton grew up in Maryland and New York State, and graduated from George School, a Quaker school, in 1939. He graduated from Cornell University in 1943 with a degree in electrical engineering, and received a master's degree from Stevens Institute of Technology.[3]

After service in the Army Signal Corps, Charles Walton worked at IBM's research and development laboratories until 1970. He founded the company Proximity Devices, Inc., in Sunnyvale, California in 1970, to manufacture devices based on his patents.
 
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Brien said:
Walmart makes me feel like a criminal so I stopped going. Inspecting my cart/receipt every time I leave. Last time I went, 75% of stuff was in locked cases, and there are ~5 employees for the entire store.
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The-Real-Deal82 said:
Wow, strange strategy in a world where contactless payments have been the norm for over 15 years now. I would have thought such an approach would cost them sales these days as shoppers are all about convenience. Most checkouts in supermarkets here aren’t even manned and it’s all self serve or self scan. Contactless is a must.
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The norm?
Curious how this is that being measured.
 
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tmiw said:
I actually have the chip run on my card a lot of the time even at those. Granted, the server or whoever has to do it since wireless terminals still aren't common, but eh.
Click to expand...

Which entirely defeats the purpose of upgrading to chip. The added security of the chip is useless when they have to take your card out of your sight and anyone could simply write down its details with a pen and paper while the card is away. Upgrading to chip by getting wired pinpads was the most stupid decision US sit down restaurants could have made. Now it’ll take them ages to bring payment to the tables.
 
monstermash said:
Yep, Home Depot and Lowe's.

Everywhere else I go on a regular basis does. That includes all fast food places, pretty much all convenience stores, Costco, Aldi, Shop & Save and Ace Hardware.

Overall, the Apple Pay coverage seems pretty damned good.

I don't regularly shop at Walmart OR Target and don't care what they do....but their Apple Pay acceptance status doesn't drive that decision.
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Home Depot doesn’t accept Apple Pay simply because their marketing department would loose visibility into matching transactions with a customer and household. Goes back to a statement I made on page 13 of this forums reply .
 
lartola said:
No they don’t at Walmart in the US. At least not by tapping.
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They do have a way of contactless payment, but I don't remember if it was through tapping or not. If I remember correctly, it has to do with their own app, too. I just remember when they came out with it a few years back, they had said they weren't going to support Apple Pay. At the time it didn't matter to me, but now I don't shop there as often because I don't cary my cards on my anymore. lol. Their loss I guess. Not that it's doing them much harm.

*Edit* I went to go look, and it's called Walmart Pay. But yeah, it's not with a card. :)
 
no_idea said:
Home Depot doesn’t accept Apple Pay simply because their marketing department would loose visibility into matching transactions with a customer and household. Goes back to a statement I made on page 13 of this forums reply .
Click to expand...

Which I find fascinating.

I mean, Home Depot knows everything I buy from them. So what? I never get emails or postal mails from them. I can't help but wonder what this info does for them.

As a side note, Home Depot could share my purchase info with the entire planet if they wanted to, and it wouldn't bother me in the slightest.
 
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Chazz12 said:
They do have a way of contactless payment, but I don't remember if it was through tapping or not. If I remember correctly, it has to do with their own app, too. I just remember when they came out with it a few years back, they had said they weren't going to support Apple Pay. At the time it didn't matter to me, but now I don't shop there as often because I don't cary my cards on my anymore. lol. Their loss I guess. Not that it's doing them much harm.

*Edit* I went to go look, and it's called Walmart Pay. But yeah, it's not with a card. :)
Click to expand...

yeah Walmart Pay is touchless, but doesn’t use NFC (tapping) like apple pay, Google Pay and the contactless cards do. Instead, walmart pay uses a QR code that the customer scans. So to the original question, does walmart accept contactless cards? the answer is NO.
 
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no_idea said:
Home Depot doesn’t accept Apple Pay simply because their marketing department would loose visibility into matching transactions with a customer and household. Goes back to a statement I made on page 13 of this forums reply .
Click to expand...
I'm pretty sure there are ways they could still track it and connect those dots. Most places that have rewards programs ask for your email, and you can still use Apple Pay.
 
monstermash said:
Which I find fascinating.

I mean, Home Depot knows everything I buy from them. So what? I never get emails or postal mails from them. I can't help but wonder what this info does for them.

As a side note, Home Depot could share my purchase info with the entire planet if they wanted to, and it wouldn't bother me in the slightest.
Click to expand...

Home Depot doesn’t want to share your info with anyone. They just want to get more info about you to target ads now or later. When you pay with your card they get everything down to your email, phone number and address. When you use apple pay they get nothing but a “card number” assigned to your device. They dislike that so they disable contactless to prevent you from using apple pay.
 
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Chazz12 said:
I'm pretty sure there are ways they could still track it and connect those dots. Most places that have rewards programs ask for your email, and you can still use Apple Pay.
Click to expand...
No they can’t and I know this first hand. When Apple Pay first came out, believe it or not Home Depot USA supported Apple Pay for about 2 months. Then when the consumer insights department showed to senior leadership that they could not match Apple Pay transactions to customers do to the random tokens for every transaction, Apple Pay was immediately disabled at all Home Depot’s.
 
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lartola said:
Home Depot doesn’t want to share your info with anyone. They just want to get more info about you to target ads now or later. When you pay with your card they get everything down to your email, phone number and address. When you use apple pay they get nothing but a “card number” assigned to your device. They dislike that so they disable contactless to prevent you from using apple pay.
Click to expand...
I understand that. My point was that they are not sending me any ads, targeted or otherwise.
 
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