It's probably the same regardless of how the card is run as long as the card is actually present. In theory, anyway; it wouldn't surprise me if there are sketchy payment processors that actually charge more to at least enable it at the terminal, if not on a per-transaction basis.
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Walmart Still Doesn't Accept Apple Pay in U.S. Despite Many Customer Requests
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It's probably the same regardless of how the card is run as long as the card is actually present. In theory, anyway; it wouldn't surprise me if there are sketchy payment processors that actually charge more to at least enable it at the terminal, if not on a per-transaction basis.
And I know that if Walmart becomes too much hassle, I can switch to something else. It's not like they are holding me hostage. Around here, the choice is plentiful.
However as long as they offer enough to offset the inconvenience of me having to use my physical card once a week, I'll survive. Put it this way - the ability to use AP is not on my top five list of why I pick a store. Perhaps a top ten, if they satisfy the other nine conditions. And Walmart (at least the local one) beats most other stores not only in price, but also in selection. They were the second major chain around here to start selling gluten free bread (after Whole Foods, and a whole lot cheaper), they have a decent selection of cuts of meat that I can't find in any other chain - e.g. a large beef brisket, if I can't find it at Walmart my only other option is a butcher shop; Kroger / Meijer / Aldi don't carry them. Same with ribs - their selection is second only to Costco and Sam's, but I can be in and out of Walmart much faster.
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That’s exactly the issue: the reasons why you and millions of other people keep going to walmart despite the lack of contactless. Given what those reasons are, it sate to say that there’s basically nothing that will ever stop people from shopping at Walmart and Walmart knows that. Heck, Walmart could even afford the luxury of going cash only -if cornered by the card networks between enabling nfc or not taking cards at all-, and wouldn’t lose too many customers. People (very likely including you) would continue to shop at walmart and wouldn’t care to pay in cash, just like they don’t care now about having to insert their card.
Holy crap this is a very weird forum post. As someone who bounces all over Apple/Android, I see a ton of people complaining about Walmart doing what Apple does, lol, it's crazy. Imagine these two complaints switching places... Apple should just use RCS message because the majority use it, negative news coverage, yeah, yeah, whatever.
Maybe I'm wrong, but anyone who can afford to be in the Apple ecosystem is just not the target Wal-Mart customer by a long shot.
My point there was that Walmart is only one store in the overall retail store landscape. Yes, there are certainly other stores that don't allow contactless payments too. According to some stats, around 67% of U.S. stores allowed some sort of contactless payment in 2021 but I would assume that percentage is higher today.
By a long shot?? I don't believe the average income of a Walmart customer is as low as you think and/or the income needed to "afford to be in the Apple ecosystem" is as high as you think.
Walmart has been selling iPhones since late 2008 and was the fourth major U.S. retailer (behind Apple, AT&T and Best Buy) to start selling iPhones.
It's a similar story across Europe. Very rarely have cash on me, simply no need in Dublin. Taxis were one of the biggest holdouts, but a recent change in the law put a stop to that
The banks in Ireland are terrible too. The fintech bank Revolut is ubiquitous here, simply because the main banks are so hopeless
I’m seeing the beginnings of a movement back to cash in the US, albeit a small one. Local restaurants are starting to charge a fee for credit card purchases, just like some gas stations did in the past and do today. For me it’s working. At those places I do use cash. If/as more places do this, I’ll use cash more and have no trouble doing so.
On aside, if cash does become a more common payment medium, retailers need to get rid of the change. That is, things need to be rounded to the nearest quarter or even dollar. No one cares about nor wants pennies, nickels, or even dimes to fool with and inflation has reached the point where their value borders on zero. Retailers like the change because over many transactions the pennies add up to real money, as do the taxing authorities for the same reason. But if you can round to the nearest penny, you can round to the nearest anything so I don’t buy the argument. Just eliminate the change other than MAYBE quarters now.
On aside, if cash does become a more common payment medium, retailers need to get rid of the change. That is, things need to be rounded to the nearest quarter or even dollar. No one cares about nor wants pennies, nickels, or even dimes to fool with and inflation has reached the point where their value borders on zero. Retailers like the change because over many transactions the pennies add up to real money, as do the taxing authorities for the same reason. But if you can round to the nearest penny, you can round to the nearest anything so I don’t buy the argument. Just eliminate the change other than MAYBE quarters now.
Lol that’s just snobbery.
The “target” Walmart customer is very much driven by the local demographics. When they open one in a solid middle class / upper middle class area, do you think they do it to attract people from trailer park six miles down the road ? They seem to be pretty successfully competing with midrange chains now, regardless of what their origin was.
So what ?
Let’s say Meijer has AP and Walmart is cash only.
If Walmart is 2-3% cheaper, I will shop at Meijer because of convenience.
If Walmart is 20-30% cheaper, I will shop there and bring cash.
It’s up to both of them to find that sweet spot.
Credit card surcharges used to be illegal but that changed years ago and now restaurants and other businesses in nearly every state can legally charge customers extra for using a credit card.
Some gas stations and other businesses had gotten around the (old) law by giving a "cash discount" instead of charging extra for credit card purchases even though the net result and purpose was essentially the same.
This video from April 2023 explains why contactless payments and tap to pay were late in the US.
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If Walmart can figure out a way to differentiate between a tap-to-pay card and payment using Apple Pay or Google Wallet, I wouldn't be surprised that Walmart will start accepting payments using credit and debit cards that have tap-to-pay functionality.
When I visit Dublin I use FreeNow (and Uber) to book my taxis so the transaction is completely cashless. Good to know if I flag one down that I can use a card.
That’s already possible. Many merchants around the world already have their system set up to distinguish between contactless cards and mobile wallets so that the contactless caps put in place by local regulations are only applied to the former; Since there are no caps for contactless in the US, the system could instead be set up to allow contactless with physical cards but not with mobile wallets if walmart wanted to, but they just don’t want to.
I dunno, most gas stations here have been charging extra for years now and people still apparently use their cards at those, so people may also ultimately accept the extra fees as a "cost of doing business" if they end up becoming more common elsewhere. Especially since there isn't a viable alternative for people in the US to use that's not cash (other than maybe Venmo, but that has an even bigger acceptance problem than Apple Pay).
I'm not overly familiar with App Store rules, but in theory could Walmart embed Apple Pay into the Walmart app, so the consumer can use the Walmart app to pay at the till, but the transaction is by Apple Pay? Doesn't solve the privacy issues, but a compromise never the less
I think a potentially daunting issue for Walmart is having to replace at very high cost all those Point of Sale terminals with new terminals that will accept contactless payments from a physical card only. But I do expect due to increasing regulations on improved credit card security, everybody will have contactless card payment terminals.
Except that the hardware they're using now can do it if they wanted to. There really weren't that many EMV capable devices even back in 2014-15 that didn't have contactless readers, much less now.
They don’t have to. The distinction is set up via software in the system, no need to replace machines (in fact they already did that for Samsung Pay via magnetic stripe a couple of years ago).
Literally I was even surprised when my local smaller mom and pop shop little store in the corner takes Apple Pay.