Exactly. It would be silly to think either one would have very much influence over the other. Walmart, it’s like Apple in the sense they are both mega corporations so they don’t need each other to survive. Apple Pay is obviously is adopted around the world so it’s not going away even if Walmart holds out forever.
I still like to be an optimistic consumer and express my opinions with my wallet. I will prefer businesses that are doing the things I like. I think most consumers will prefer businesses where they get what they want. Does Walmart care that they some portion of my business and some portion of a few other people’s business? Probably not, but who knows maybe there’s some suit at their headquarters that figures out that they could get 0.5% extra revenue by adopting Apple Pay then it might happen 😂
The one thing that I will praise Walmart for is the optimization of the concepts of product distribution. In previous times (most older department stores, Kmart, etc.) had the model of buying a $5 product from the manufacturer, which then had to get shipped by some carrier to a national warehouse, then by a carrier to a regional warehouse, then by a 3rd carrier to a local warehouse, then to a local distributor who would get the product to a store. Each one of those hops in the chain would charge for the time and money spent on shipping the product, in which the stores would offset that by marking up the cost of the product. By the time the product gets to the store, the store would mark that product up to $100, put it on the shelves, and that's what the people would buy.
Walmart cut out all of those middle men. They built their own warehouse, bought their own trucks, and shipped everything themselves. They'd still buy that $5 product from the manufacturer, but built their own distribution network (Sam Walton Distributions), used their own trucks to ship that product to their warehouses, then to the stores. They would still charge that markup, but would be instead paying themselves for that markup. They'd get that product to the stores, but instead of charging $100 for that product, they'd save a couple of pennies or dollars off (that $100 product would cost, for example, $97.42), so you think you're saving money over Walmart's competitor. Walmart pockets the difference, and that is how you get their prices over their competitors.
Walmart and Target use the same model.
Outside of that, it comes down to who they cater to, and why. Adoption of Apple Pay is one thing, but I have more ethical issues with Walmart than Apple Pay.
BL.
