Point-of-Sale Suppliers See Massive Increase in Retailer Interest Following Apple Pay Launch

MacRumors · Jan 26, 2015

A new report by The Wall Street Journal looks at the early performance of Apple's new electronic payments service, Apple Pay, finding strong signs of momentum behind the service. One of the key signs of interest in mobile payments comes from point-of-sales system suppliers seeing drastic increases in retailer interest following the launch of Apple Pay last October.

Harbortouch has offered free wireless readers to its retailer clients since 2012, and in the month following the Apple Pay launch 68 percent of client orders asked for the readers supporting wireless payments. As of August of 2013, only 22 percent of its clients had installed such readers in their stores.

"It's like night and day," said Brendan Lauber, Harbortouch's chief technology officer. "Now, merchants are actively coming to us and asking how to support this."

The Wall Street Journal piece also covers the general surge in public acceptance for the service, remarking on recent stories that Apple Pay now supports cards representing about 90 percent of the credit card purchase volume in the United States, and that Apple's upcoming financial reports for the latest quarter may provide more details.

Article Link: Point-of-Sale Suppliers See Massive Increase in Retailer Interest Following Apple Pay Launch

SirLance99 · Jan 26, 2015

I have yet to see anyone but myself use Apple Pay or Google Wallet. I love using both and do every time I can but I'd to see one other person use them as well.

Karma*Police · Jan 26, 2015

After my Amex got hacked I now use Apple Pay whenever it's available and often seek out merchants that support Apple Pay.

2457282 · Jan 26, 2015

SirLance99 said:
I have yet to see anyone but myself use Apple Pay or Google Wallet. I love using both and do every time I can but I'd to see one other person use them as well.

Come over and you can see me use Apple Pay, but not goggle wallet.

wannabefanboy · Jan 26, 2015

Come to the UK already!

extricated · Jan 26, 2015

I'm convinced that Apple Pay is one of the best moves Apple has made in awhile. As more people phase out their old iPhones (me included), this will continue to grow by leaps and bounds. Not to mention the upcoming Apple Watch - which will put this tech on the wrists of ... well, who knows how many?

Nicky G · Jan 26, 2015

Love using Apple Pay (woot Whole Foods!) and can't wait for CurrentC to utterly fall apart so those retailers who have gone out of their way to block wireless payments at terminals that do technically accept them can move on and support Apple Pay already!

ghostface147 · Jan 26, 2015

Apple Pay is a great idea, but will never dominate the market since they don't have the majority marketshare worldwide. I use it as much as I can and it frustrates me when I see NFC terminals that are there, but don't work. Whataburger and McGovern Centennial Gardens (although to be fair it does say disabled) here in Houston are the biggest offenders. Oddly enough, my apartment complex has a vending machine that uses NFC and it works great.

smizzle · Jan 26, 2015

SirLance99 said:
I have yet to see anyone but myself use Apple Pay or Google Wallet. I love using both and do every time I can but I'd to see one other person use them as well.

Same here. I use it every chance I get but I've never seen anyone else use it. The closest I've gotten was seeing a guy use a touch-to-pay credit card at Panera once...

Iconoclysm · Jan 26, 2015

ghostface147 said:
Apple Pay is a great idea, but will never dominate the market since they don't have the majority marketshare worldwide. I use it as much as I can and it frustrates me when I see NFC terminals that are there, but don't work. Whataburger and McGovern Centennial Gardens (although to be fair it does say disabled) here in Houston are the biggest offenders. Oddly enough, my apartment complex has a vending machine that uses NFC and it works great.

I wouldn't be so quick to assume that OS marketshare means more NFC enabled hardware that will be used. Combined with Apple Watch, it's really difficult to say. Also remember that for either of these systems to "dominate", the one that has the most consumer money flowing through is the winner. Judging from App Store purchases and whatnot, Apple is certainly not out of the race.

The strangest thing I've paid for with Apple Pay so far is an air pump that charged $1.50 to fill my tires at a gas station. Worked flawlessly.

wolfaaron · Jan 26, 2015

ghostface147 said:
Apple Pay is a great idea, but will never dominate the market since they don't have the majority marketshare worldwide. I use it as much as I can and it frustrates me when I see NFC terminals that are there, but don't work. Whataburger and McGovern Centennial Gardens (although to be fair it does say disabled) here in Houston are the biggest offenders. Oddly enough, my apartment complex has a vending machine that uses NFC and it works great.

That might be because some retailers purposely block apple pay. If they didn't block Apple pay then it would work fine on their terminals. Vending machines have an interest in keeping Apple pay because they know that when people stopped carrying cash they lost customers so they added a magnetic card reader to gain them back. And now that people are aware of the card thieves hacking vending machines they lost a lot of clients and they started adding NFC readers to gain them back. Vending machines are in the business of convenience and NFC falls in that category.

Retailers are in the business of commodities and so they know you'll pay with another method of you really want your groceries. They don't bother with convenience until a competitor starts stealing clients with convinience methods.

avanpelt · Jan 26, 2015

ghostface147 said:
Apple Pay is a great idea, but will never dominate the market since they don't have the majority marketshare worldwide.

True, but Android does have majority market share worldwide and many Android handsets have supported NFC payments for years via Google Wallet. I don't care what NFC-compatible service customers are using on their devices (and retailers shouldn't care, either).

The retailers just need to buy NFC-capable POS units and deploy them with the NFC functionality turned on. Apple Pay is the best thing that could've happened for Google Wallet in terms of helping bring NFC payments more into the mainstream.

nagromme · Jan 26, 2015

Maybe Apple should give away nice, distinctive free sticky-badges that say "Apple Pay is accepted where NFC is available," and show the NFC logo. It would let stores claim ApplePay support AND educate people on how to recognize other ApplePay-ready locations, that may not even realize their system supports it.

Robert.Walter · Jan 26, 2015

This would be a good use of ibeacons; they could announce to user that apple pay was accepted in store.

I just wish some of the laggards like costco and Kroger would add apple pay functionality to their pos systems.

hofer · Jan 26, 2015

I must be shopping at the wrong stores. Here in Houston I only know of Whole Foods, MacDonald's and Walgreens, places I rarely shop at. I tried at Subway once, but it didn't work there despite the claim to the contrary.

Kroger stores here just replaced all their point-of-sales machines, but guess what - no NFC capability. The same is the case for the other major grocery store chains here, HEB and Randall's (Safeway).

Surprisingly I was able to use Apple Pay when I bought a Christmas tree at Houston Garden Center, but that only happens once a year.

In summary, adaptation is very slow here. Until they can get the major grocery chains and mass retailers on board, I don't see it taking off.

cub850G2 · Jan 26, 2015

hofer said:
I must be shopping at the wrong stores. Here in Houston I only know of Whole Foods, MacDonald's and Walgreens, places I rarely shop at. I tried at Subway once, but it didn't work there despite the claim to the contrary.

Kroger stores here just replaced all their point-of-sales machines, but guess what - no NFC capability. The same is the case for the other major grocery store chains here, HEB and Randall's (Safeway).

Surprisingly I was able to use Apple Pay when I bought a Christmas tree at Houston Garden Center, but that only happens once a year.

In summary, adaptation is very slow here. Until they can get the major grocery chains and mass retailers on board, I don't see it taking off.

Do the Kroger's have the Verifone MX915 (black shiny and comes with Contactless on by default) or the MX870( grey old ones). So I asked Kroger about Apple Pay and they said they were evaluating Contactless payments still and they said a few of their stores do accept them. I'm sure they will feel the pressure at some point and choose to turn it on, especially since most Kroger's already have MX915 terminals. To find what what places accept Apple Pay use this site: http://www.mastercard.us/cardholder-services/paypass-locator.html is helpful or you can use the MC nearby app on your phone which ties to that same online Paypass database. There is also this MR thread: https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/1806254/ I bet there are many ma and pa places to use it as well, which is fun to find and use it there. For example, I see that a The Fresh Market in Houston is on the Paypass locator, 5016 San Felipe ST Houston, TX 77056.

jim2011 · Jan 26, 2015

ghostface147 said:
Apple Pay is a great idea, but will never dominate the market since they don't have the majority marketshare worldwide. I use it as much as I can and it frustrates me when I see NFC terminals that are there, but don't work. Whataburger and McGovern Centennial Gardens (although to be fair it does say disabled) here in Houston are the biggest offenders. Oddly enough, my apartment complex has a vending machine that uses NFC and it works great.

If a machine supports apple pay, it supports google wallet. If a machine supports google wallet, it supports apple pay. So why are you talking about majority marketshare?

The problem is retailers that are actively blocking NFC payments all together because of some piece of crap solution that they contractually committed to supporting.

avanpelt · Jan 26, 2015

cub850G2 said:
So I asked Kroger about Apple Pay and they said they were evaluating Contactless payments still and they said a few of their stores do accept them.

That's interesting about Kroger. Perhaps they're doing an about-face (albeit slowly). About two months ago, I tweeted them and asked if they had any plans to accept Apple Pay and they replied within a few hours to say that they had no plans to accept it. Hopefully they're seeing the writing on the wall when it comes to NFC payments.

There's no reason for them not to accept NFC payments. It only enhances their security when it comes to my financial information and they can still track all of my shopping habits via my Kroger Plus Card like they want to be able to do.

thekeyring · Jan 26, 2015

Apple really is changing mobile payments. Google is forced to update/promote Wallet to ensure Android users don't miss out. Apple are getting stores to install NFC systems to ensure customers can pay with their phones.

JAT · Jan 26, 2015

ghostface147 said:
I use it as much as I can and it frustrates me when I see NFC terminals that are there, but don't work.

To be fair, other than a few notable idiot companies, most companies have simply never turned NFC on because (nearly) nobody in the USA had the capability in their wallet, anyway. There has been no demand for contact-less until Apple Pay came out.

That's why it's so hilarious that Apple hasn't worked it out for the UK, yet.

thekeyring · Jan 26, 2015

ghostface147 said:
Apple Pay is a great idea, but will never dominate the market since they don't have the majority marketshare worldwide.

It's difficult to say. OS share doesn't mean everything. My mum has an Android phone that's bascially used as a feature phone. I wonder how many others do, too?

Plus, aren't iPhone owners, on average, more affluent, and therefore more like to have disposable income to spend using Apple Pay?

Lastly, doesn't iOS generate more revenue both in-app and when people shop online?

jrswizzle · Jan 26, 2015

Karma*Police said:
After my Amex got hacked I now use Apple Pay whenever it's available and often seek out merchants that support Apple Pay.

My Wells Fargo Visa has been jacked twice in the last 4 months (they suspect the same people got the new one somehow)....

I too seek out Apple Pay merchants and use them whenever possible.

fallenjt · Jan 26, 2015

Cuban Missles said:
Come over and you can see me use Apple Pay, but not goggle wallet.

Me too, Apple Pay whenever possible, no Google Wallet...Touch ID: rules for Apple Pay while PIN for Google Wallet: Fail!

Jeff Meredith · Jan 26, 2015

Lots of Places Take Apple Pay (NFC)

I use Apple Pay every chance I get which is quite a bit. You would be surprised how many places take NFC.

A new free app (Mobile Pay Finder) was just released that helps find places and is linked to MasterCards database. https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/mobile-pay-finder/id942307294?mt=8

I was humbled by it, but gladly, thinking I knew all of the places near me.

Besides the official Apple Pay merchants, I found instances of Papa Murphy's, IKEA, Smiths, Sunflower, Sprouts, Floor&Decor, Body Shop, Savers, T-Mobile, Verizon, AT&T, BP, Exxon, FireHouse Subs, Jack in the Box, Wendys, Meineke, Rubios, Sport Clips. And Albertson's is under way, hopefully soon followed by Safeway which is part of the same corporation.

They might not all have it at every location but it's worth looking at the app in your location.

NFC adoption is growing, One place I went to yesterday didn't have NFC POS in December but did in January, so now I can use Apple Pay (Firehouse Subs).

Jeff Meredith · Jan 26, 2015

Lots of Places Take Apple Pay (NFC)

I use Apple Pay every chance I get which is quite a bit. You would be surprised how many places take NFC.

A new free app (Mobile Pay Finder) was just released that helps find places and is linked to MasterCards database. https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/mobile-pay-finder/id942307294?mt=8

I was humbled by it, but gladly, thinking I knew all of the places near me.

Besides the official Apple Pay merchants, I found instances of Papa Murphy's, IKEA, Smiths, Sunflower, Sprouts, Floor&Decor, Body Shop, Savers, T-Mobile, Verizon, AT&T, BP, Exxon, FireHouse Subs, Jack in the Box, Wendys, Meineke, Rubios, Sport Clips. And Albertson's is under way, hopefully soon followed by Safeway which is part of the same corporation.

They might not all have it at every location but it's worth looking at the app in your location.

NFC adoption is growing, One place I went to yesterday didn't have NFC POS in December but did in January, so now I can use Apple Pay (Firehouse Subs).

Point-of-Sale Suppliers See Massive Increase in Retailer Interest Following Apple Pay Launch

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