Apple Pay Usage Declined on Black Friday Over Last Year Per New Study

[MacRumors]

In a new study performed by InfoScout, nearly half as many possible Apple Pay customers used the mobile payments system on Black Friday in 2015 as they did in 2014 on the same sales-laden holiday (via Quartz). The study polled a total of 300,000 people to gather the information, discerning the time around March 2015 as Apple Pay's peak, with another understandable resurgence in the fall surrounding the launch of the iPhone 6s and iPhone 6s Plus.

The research organization found that Apple Pay was used for only 2.7 percent of total possible Apple Pay-eligible transactions on Black Friday this year. This is opposed to 2014, where new iPhone 6 and 6 Plus customers used Apple Pay in 4.9 percent of eligible transactions. As InfoScout points out, simple early adopter curiosity -- Apple Pay was barely a month old at the time -- could have helped in the service's early-on surge in numbers.

InfoScout's survey didn't track in-app payments made on Black Friday through Apple Pay, however, so customers who shopped on mobile devices in apps like Target and Best Buy were not included in the results. 300,000 participants is a large sample size, but given the popularity of mobile and online shopping, there's a good possibility that a large swath of Apple Pay's numbers were subsequently excluded from the poll.

Despite the tepid usage of Apple Pay on Black Friday this year as reported by the survey, Apple has been in full force behind the year-old service. With its launch in new countries like Canada and Australia, the company has continued to educate its customers on Apple Pay's various features with new guided tour videos. Other stores have launched loyalty rewards support and the service is available at more places than ever thanks to Square's $49 NFC and Chip reader.

Article Link: Apple Pay Usage Declined on Black Friday Over Last Year Per New Study

 

[levitynyc]

It's beyond frustrating because I can never remember which stores take it and which don't.

All these places have the NFC readers but only like 10% take Apple Pay. Even places like Best Buy, not all of their stores take it.

Bad job by Apple not getting this out to more customers. Why hasn't Starbucks signed up? Why haven't any grocery stores signed up?

I've only used it at BB, GameStop, McDs, and Panera Bread.

There's a pizza place that has Apple stickers everywhere saying they take it, but they don't have an NFC card reader. How is that possible? How can I report this to Apple?

 

[jonnysods]

I thought it would be higher with more Apple watches making it easier. I'm in Canada and it's not widespread. I would totally use it though.

 

[iSRS]

Well, here is the thing with this survey. November 2014, the iPhone 6/6+ were the only devices with it, and it was only a month old (3 months for the phone). Today, there are 14 months worth of iPhone 6/6+ sales, Apple Watches, and iPhone 6s/6s+ sales. In other words, a larger pool of "eligible" transactions.

What are the raw numbers? How many transactions? Did it go from 100,000 to 1 million, but represent a decline % wise? And what defines an "Apple Pay" eligible transaction? Every transaction made at Apple Pay accepting stores, regardless if the customer has an Apple Pay ready device?

Lots of questions, very light on the facts, and the facts provided tell us almost nothing.

 

[ArtOfWarfare]

I've been really disappointed with retailers these past few months.

The laws changed so that most of them felt it was a good choice to replace their terminals with ones that could support chipped cards.

I expected that most of them would get terminals that support NFC at the same time. It just seems like a no brainer - if you're updating your terminals anyways, why not get all the features you'll likely want within the next decade? Now you'll just have to go through all the same hassle again in a few years.

Anyways, if it were feasible for me to make all my payments with Apple Pay, I'd ditch my credit card. As is, I find it's normally easier to use my credit card than Apple Pay (because I have a wallet case.)

 

[iSRS]

It's beyond frustrating because I can never remember which stores take it and which don't.

All these places have the NFC readers but only like 10% take Apple Pay. Even places like Best Buy, not all of their stores take it.

Bad job by Apple not getting this out to more customers. Why hasn't Starbucks signed up? Why haven't any grocery stores signed up?

I've only used it at BB, GameStop, McDs, and Panera Bread.

There's a pizza place that has Apple stickers everywhere saying they take it, but they don't have an NFC card reader. How is that possible? How can I report this to Apple?

I am sure that it is the retailers. Here in the States, effective 10/1, the retailers are now responsible for fraud if they don't support the "chip and pin" technology. I would say that 50% of the places I go? Still don't have terminals that accept the chip.

Of those that do? Their units largely also support NFC payments. But....

...not only do they have NFC turned off, they have tape and post-it notes covering the spot to insert your chip card. It's beyond ridiculous, but retailers, much like government agencies (schools, etc), are horrible at implementing technology, and often too cheap to hire the right people to do so.

 

[gixxerfool]

I got a 6S+ on launch day. I've used Apple Pay twice...on a vending machine...the same vending machine. Only because it wouldn't accept my dollar. I would use it at more stores. There are stores that have the NFC terminal only to be told that it's not working and I have to swipe my card. How does this make sense?

 

[gsmornot]

I ask "Do you take ApplePay" and the majority of the time its either, "what is that" or "sorry no, we have not been setup yet". The terminals look like they have been there for many years. I use it where its available from both a watch and a phone but its hard to find places that take the service and hard to find cashiers that know what button to press to make the terminal ready for the payment. Walgreens, Subway and a few others are consistently good. I'm sticking with this hoping it will be more widespread. I have a feeling with the slow process that chips have added to cards more people and stores will be willing to accept a payment process that for me would be faster at checkout. They need to stop with all the extras after contactless payments though if they want this to be faster. I scan my phone in some stores only to be asked questions and asked for a signature. No need for that when I had to use bio-metrics to approve to begin with.

 

[deany]

very suprised at these figures, just does not make sense.

Surely fraud is less with apple pay? therefore if I was a bank I would be falling over my self to get customers to use it.

Crazy, something isn't working somewhere. Apple need reps out in the 'field' selling it to retailers.

Apple pay is the future I would expect twice the use in a year with the apple watch launch, not half the use.

I almost disbelieve these figures.

In the UK Tesco's & their One Stops outside of London will be a game changer, & now Tesco Bank are on board it makes no sense _all_ Tesco should now offer apple pay. Come on Tesco & apple!!

Average UK spend in a supermarket is £25.00 well under the £30.00 apple pay maximum 'allowance'. With potential of almost zero fraud.

 

[gixxerfool]

I am sure that it is the retailers. Here in the States, effective 10/1, the retailers are now responsible for fraud if they don't support the "chip and pin" technology. I would say that 50% of the places I go? Still don't have terminals that accept the chip.

Of those that do? Their units largely also support NFC payments. But....

...not only do they have NFC turned off, they have tape and post-it notes covering the spot to insert your chip card. It's beyond ridiculous, but retailers, much like government agencies (schools, etc), are horrible at implementing technology, and often too cheap to hire the right people to do so.

I've seen this as well. Is their plan to say, "Oh we have the terminals, we're not liable for the breach!"

 

[gsmornot]

I am sure that it is the retailers. Here in the States, effective 10/1, the retailers are now responsible for fraud if they don't support the "chip and pin" technology. I would say that 50% of the places I go? Still don't have terminals that accept the chip.

Of those that do? Their units largely also support NFC payments. But....

...not only do they have NFC turned off, they have tape and post-it notes covering the spot to insert your chip card. It's beyond ridiculous, but retailers, much like government agencies (schools, etc), are horrible at implementing technology, and often too cheap to hire the right people to do so.

Chip and pin would be nice but that is in Europe. We have chip and sign which is only more secure in the transmission. Its no more secure at the store level and its slower.

 

[bkaus]

I've been really disappointed with retailers these past few months.

The laws changed so that most of them felt it was a good choice to replace their terminals with ones that could support chipped cards.

I expected that most of them would get terminals that support NFC at the same time. It just seems like a no brainer - if you're updating your terminals anyways, why not get all the features you'll likely want within the next decade? Now you'll just have to go through all the same hassle again in a few years.

Anyways, if it were feasible for me to make all my payments with Apple Pay, I'd ditch my credit card. As is, I find it's normally easier to use my credit card than Apple Pay (because I have a wallet case.)

Small retailers appear to be replacing with readers that handle chip & NFC. Many are running into minor problems from what I can tell, specifically ones with readers integrated into point of sale systems. Most are working on it, but not a huge priority yet. A place up the street had it, but had to back it out because it lost all of their existing customer data. He's going to try again early next year.

Big retailers have prioritized chip as that helps their liability. NFC is not necessary for the liability shift. Most installed readers that can handle NFC, but are trying to step into it one piece at a time. Office supply stores now support ApplePay so that helps, big box hardware stores have not for example. But their hardware does support it.

Our own biz is treading water on the subject. Going to do before end of year, but not a huge priority. The liability shift means very little to us as we have everyone's drivers license on file for other reasons... so not much fraud opportunity.

 

[gixxerfool]

Let me add to this the fact my Wells Fargo card uses a chip and pin. They were also an Apple Pay launch partner. Their in bank units don't support chip and pin nor nfc. It's perplexing.

 

[rdlink]

I got a 6S+ on launch day. I've used Apple Pay twice...on a vending machine...the same vending machine. Only because it wouldn't accept my dollar. I would use it at more stores. There are stores that have the NFC terminal only to be told that it's not working and I have to swipe my card. How does this make sense?

I told Petsmart last week that they've lost my business to Petco until they start accepting Apple Pay on their NFC enabled readers. They've had them in the stores for almost a year. There is no excuse for them to not be enabled.

Most retailers are doing a lousy job of dealing with this. Even launch partners. Walgreen's, I'm looking at you. I was in last night picking up a prescription and the woman behind the counter didn't even know that I could use my watch to scan my rewards card. By the time she got the question out about whether I had a card I had already scanned my watch. It was like I had shown her fire for the first time.

 

[ptb42]

The laws changed so that most of them felt it was a good choice to replace their terminals with ones that could support chipped cards.

The "law" didn't change. The merchant agreement was changed.

Merchants can continue to use their mag-stripe terminals. They just assume the liability for any fraud.

Some merchants are choosing to do that, instead of replacing integrated point-of-sale terminals immediately.

 

[TonyC28]

Lack of places that accept Apple Pay + lack of readers that actually work + lack of employees who know how to do it = people losing interest in Apple Pay. I've looked like a dope enough time at stores when this didn't work to make me not want to try it again for a while.

 

[Jsameds]

In the UK Apple Pay has an upper limit of £30. I bought a number of things in sales this last week and all were online and none were using Apple Pay.

That said, I use AP all the time for supermarket purchases, it makes paying and getting out of the door so much faster compared to cash or card.

 

[OllyW]

I use it wherever I can. There are loads of UK retailers supporting Apple Pay but most are still restricted by the £30 limit which means it's not an option for a lot of my shopping.

 

[JeffyTheQuik]

A few things to improve usage:
Train the staff. (Golly! That's cool is indicative that aren't)
Accept Apple Pay. (Wondering if it works isn't a good strategy)
Have a temporary default card.
Make it compelling. Show how easy it is to use and it's the Watch
Make the readers prominently display where to put the phone/watch (A card slot is intuitively obvious. I hate feeling around for it like a 16 year old on a date, wondering if that's the right place)

 

[avanpelt]

As much as I hate to say it, Apple Pay looks to be like another Thunderbolt scenario. Apple brought it out with tremendous fanfare and said it was going to be so much better than anything else. The results? Well, there are limited use cases where the technology is very helpful but mainstream adoption is simply not happening.

Apple Pay is running into roadblocks largely because of retailers in the U.S. and because of banks and credit card companies in the rest of the world. Without a majority of both banks and retailers on board simultaneously, the technology is going to have a hard time taking off.

 

[H2SO4]

The "law" didn't change. The merchant agreement was changed.

Merchants can continue to use their mag-stripe terminals. They just assume the liability for any fraud.

Some merchants are choosing to do that, instead of replacing integrated point-of-sale terminals immediately.

This makes me wonderif there is more to it than we see on the surface. Is somebody gettimg a backhander somewhere? Are Apples terms ridiculous? Is it unreliable etc etc?

 

[centauratlas]

...Why haven't any grocery stores signed up?

...

At least around here The Fresh Market, Trader Joe's and Winn Dixie grocery stores take Apple Pay. The Publix store manager says they will soon.

And it is worthwhile to point out this isn't an absolute number, rather a percentage. So the absolute numbers could be 10 times more, while the number of usable devices (Apple Watch, many more iPhone 6 and 6s' out there) is 20 times larger and so the percentage dropped.

 

[ptb42]

Let me add to this the fact my Wells Fargo card uses a chip and pin.

Is it a credit or debit card? And if it's a credit card, have you actually had to enter the PIN in the US?

Wells Fargo issues PINs with their credit cards, but the cards are coded to require a signature first, and only ask for a PIN if you are using an unattended terminal that can't accept a signature. In the US, you'll be asked for a signature.

The intention was to support the use of these cards at unattended gas pumps, etc. in Europe. But in my experience, it doesn't work: the unattended terminals don't know how to handle it and reject the card.

 

[inhalexhale1]

I thought it would be higher with more Apple watches making it easier. I'm in Canada and it's not widespread. I would totally use it though.

I think most people did their shopping online (read that a few places). So I think in person transactions would be down, so this does make sense.

I know I haven't set foot in one store. Anyone in north jersey, that knows the mess that is the garden state plaza during the holidays, stays far away. Anyone sane anyway!

 

[utwarreng]

For some reason I envisioned that when October 2015 hit it would be like a switch was flipped, and all of these retailers would have updated terminals with NFC and chip support. Since October I've found very few additional retailers who support NFC unfortunately. Whenever it's available, I always use Apple Pay. Primarily for the security, but also because of the great offer from Discover (10% cash back through the end of 2015 and double cash back rewards for the first year of membership).