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Walmart has announced that its mobile payments solution Walmart Pay is now available in 16 additional U.S. states, including Alabama, Georgia, Indiana, Iowa, Kentucky, Louisiana, Michigan, Mississippi, Missouri, Nebraska, North Carolina, North Dakota, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, and Virginia. Washington, D.C. is also on board.

Walmart-Pay-ss.jpg

Walmart Pay is built into the Walmart app [Direct Link] for iOS and Android and works at any checkout lane with any major credit, debit, pre-paid, or Walmart gift card.

The payments solution is based upon a QR code checkout process that involves opening the Walmart app, selecting Walmart Pay, activating the camera, scanning the code displayed at the register, and waiting for the cashier to finish bagging your items. An electronic receipt is automatically sent to the app.


Walmart Pay's widespread adoption at some 1,500 stores in fifteen more states, following statewide launches in Arkansas and Texas last month, further suggests that Walmart will not be adopting Apple Pay for at least the foreseeable future. Walmart Pay's nationwide rollout is expected to be completed in 2016.

The word in late 2015 from Walmart senior vice president of services Daniel Eckert was that Walmart Pay allows "for integration of other mobile wallets in the future," providing at least some hope that the retailer may eventually accept rival payment services such as Apple Pay, Android Pay, and Samsung Pay at its stores.

Walmart is among a handful of retailers that have refused to support Apple Pay since its American launch in October 2014. The retailer was originally committed to the Merchant Customer Exchange (MCX) consortium and its now indefinitely postponed payments service CurrentC before launching Walmart Pay.

Walmart's resistance to Apple Pay persists even as other former holdouts such as Best Buy and Rite Aid have reversed course and begun accepting the iPhone-based payments service at their U.S. stores. Walmart rival Target, meanwhile, is developing a QR code-based mobile wallet solution of its own.

The Walmart app [Direct Link] is free on the App Store for iPhone and Apple Watch.

Article Link: Apple Pay Holdout Walmart Expands 'Walmart Pay' to 16 More States
 
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mantan

macrumors 68000
Nov 2, 2009
1,742
1,030
DFW
I know the knee jerk MR reaction is to bash Walmart.

But I get what Walmart and Target are doing. Tracking consumer data is really important to them. They are going to pursue alternative electronic payments that try to let them do this while still being secure...the market will ultimately decide what's best.

Other than Starbucks, consumers have been hesitant to embrace the idea of loading an app with a QR code as a regular method of payment.
 

deany

macrumors 68030
Sep 16, 2012
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North Wales
UK's biggest supermarket Tesco is still to roll out 'apple pay' outside London, very strange, I go to Lidl now who do accept 'apple pay'.
 
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TurboPGT!

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Sep 25, 2015
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These are just examples of projects that were already green-lighted and budgeted ahead of Apple Pay's announcement.

They all know that its just a matter of time. Walmart was hoping to cut out VISA and everyone else and take back their 3%, but its not going to happen.

Target should be ashamed. They've already suffered a breach that compromised cards for many customers. An appropriate response to that should have been to run in the direction of Apple Pay as fast as they could.
[doublepost=1466690771][/doublepost]
I've been to a Walmart, you wouldn't want to be flashing an expensive phone around there anyway.
They sell iPhones at Walmart.
 

2457282

Suspended
Dec 6, 2012
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Walmart, like Google and Target, live off data. They are all very good at data analysis. Using Apple Pay initially was a significant problem for them since the transaction is tokenized, meaning that it would be very difficult to connect the transactions together to understand shopper behavior. Apple has addressed this by allowing loyalty cards, but clearly Walmart believes it can do better on its own. Personally, I hate the QR code apps including Starbucks. I like my Apple Pay and don't think I will ever use the Walmart, Target, Starbucks, or any other QR App. Hopefully I am not alone and these companies will realize that QR codes are passe and convert over at some point down the road.
 

spotlight07

macrumors regular
Mar 28, 2007
170
104
So much faster than Apple Pay. Really looking forward to trying it.

Faster? I'm in Texas and have tried it repeatedly. It's about three times slower than writing a check by hand. The first week the checkers and managers didn't know how to press the Walmart Pay Button on the register so the first few times I actually had to pay with a credit card after about 20 minutes of waiting for all the managers to come over and try to get it to work. The guy behind me said "there are too many ways to pay" and got in another line. This system is DOA.
 

pruitts

macrumors newbie
Jun 2, 2015
7
2
How is "opening the Walmart app, selecting Walmart Pay, activating the camera, scanning the code displayed at the register" faster than Apple Pay? I will stick with using the chip in my card...
 
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smacrumon

macrumors 68030
Jan 15, 2016
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I haven't used it, but I believe there are three hoops that one needs to jump through just to buy anything. That doesn't sound smart to me.
 

Robert.Walter

macrumors 68040
Jul 10, 2012
3,058
4,282
I know the knee jerk MR reaction is to bash Walmart.

But I get what Walmart and Target are doing. Tracking consumer data is really important to them. They are going to pursue alternative electronic payments that try to let them do this while still being secure...the market will ultimately decide what's best.

Other than Starbucks, consumers have been hesitant to embrace the idea of loading an app with a QR code as a regular method of payment.

Our family "market decision" is to stick with Costco.

Their new Costco Citibank Visa card easily went into Apple Pay, shows up in our Citibank credit card online account. Now all that remains is for Costco to activate their NFC POS terminals.

Walmart keeps doing douchy dumb greedy things to make us avoid them.
 

deany

macrumors 68030
Sep 16, 2012
2,873
2,086
North Wales
I tried the QR Shell Petrol iPhone reader to pay for fuel via paypal.
Unfortunately when I was trying to scan though my car window with camara a lady walked passed & thought I was photographing her!
Needless to say I gave up & drove off!
QR scan reliability is rubbish v apple pay.
 

Waxhead138

macrumors 6502
May 18, 2012
473
546
I know the knee jerk MR reaction is to bash Walmart.

But I get what Walmart and Target are doing. Tracking consumer data is really important to them. They are going to pursue alternative electronic payments that try to let them do this while still being secure...the market will ultimately decide what's best.

Other than Starbucks, consumers have been hesitant to embrace the idea of loading an app with a QR code as a regular method of payment.


The other factor when talking about Walmart and Target....generally speaking, they are all about logistical efficiency. Point being that if Walmart has rolled out something clunky that causes already long check out times to get worse, you can bet on it being improved quickly and dramatically, or being scrapped. Neither will allow something that slows down the checkout process significantly to hang around long.
 

doncarver

macrumors newbie
Oct 28, 2008
5
2
I definitely prefer ApplePay, but 2 things going for Walmart Pay:
- electronic receipts instead of paper...tree-huggers will love that.
- receipts automatically submitted to Walmart Savings Catcher (where available)...might as well scan the QR on the terminal if you'd have to scan the QR on the paper receipt later anyway, so a time-saver overall.
 

Robert.Walter

macrumors 68040
Jul 10, 2012
3,058
4,282
These are just examples of projects that were already green-lighted and budgeted ahead of Apple Pay's announcement.

They all know that its just a matter of time. Walmart was hoping to cut out VISA and everyone else and take back their 3%, but its not going to happen.

Target should be ashamed. They've already suffered a breach that compromised cards for many customers. An appropriate response to that should have been to run in the direction of Apple Pay as fast as they could.
[doublepost=1466690771][/doublepost]
They sell iPhones at Walmart.

Budget smudget. By their expansion, these companies are doubling down on their decision to implement this kludge. This is because they are more greedy than customer oriented. If they were customer oriented, not blocking NFC/Apple Pay would be an easy thing for a company with walmarts scale (if not, then economy of scale is a failed concept.)
 
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