No more Kroger stores here in Western PA either. They went on strike when I was a kid and they all shut down. Giant Eagle became a dominate grocery store for the area after Kroger left.
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Apple Pay Holdout Kroger Launches New 'Kroger Pay' Service
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No more Kroger stores here in Western PA either. They went on strike when I was a kid and they all shut down. Giant Eagle became a dominate grocery store for the area after Kroger left.
I’ve called Kroger HQ a few times about this. Was told 1-2 years ago the test was out in IIRC Arizona. Was successful in terms of functionality but there were no plans to expand the service. Such a stupid company. Our family shops Meijer and Costco instead.
NOBODY wants to carry a card, or have an app for every store they shop. These retailers need to realize this.
I mean...what are they thinking? It would be like carrying around Walmart money, Kroger money, Home Depot money...
It's actually insulting to their customers...or, would be customers...
I mean...what are they thinking? It would be like carrying around Walmart money, Kroger money, Home Depot money...
It's actually insulting to their customers...or, would be customers...
"Kroger Pay is one of the few mobile wallets that pairs loyalty and payment,"
Translation: Tracking your every spending move so we can monetize and sell your personal data is more important to us than providing confidential and secure payment.
Remember, this is from the company that's threatened to dump visa (and did at one brand). No Visa, no customer for me - there's plenty of alternatives who will be happy to take my money and let me keep my miles.
Translation: Tracking your every spending move so we can monetize and sell your personal data is more important to us than providing confidential and secure payment.
Remember, this is from the company that's threatened to dump visa (and did at one brand). No Visa, no customer for me - there's plenty of alternatives who will be happy to take my money and let me keep my miles.
Yup.
I'm guessing <=12mo
KR was #17 on the F500 in 2017, and still Going-Strong . . .
. . . They can, basically, Pilot anything They want.
I (personally) Lurve KR, and don't give one-whit-to the analytics::tracking.
COST (#15) accepts AAPL (#4) 'Pay' which is Hooge.
I do not use AAPL-Pay, and have no real need for such Things.
The flexibility of "I want/need This, and can pay for it with That" is tempting, and I can smell it in the fur of my Cat . . .
. . . this ubiquitous-ness of such a Thing, OTOH, draws-me to the Ointment like any Good Fly
Were I a Share-Holder . . . .
Regards, splifingate
That's precisely why I never use a debit card, only credit. A credit card is the bank's money. A debit card is your money. Report the fraud to the issuer and move on with a new card number. And while you certainly raise a good point about the security of said data, that's a separate issue from the grocery store loyalty programs I was talking about. In and of themselves they are rather benign and can even be used in combination with Apple Pay.
It's not really about the data. Anyone who shops at a Kroger brand store regularly is using a loyalty card (otherwise they overpay by 20% on almost everything in the store) and that collects your data just fine. This is about trying to get out from under the credit card companies. Retailers HATE processing fees and they see a move to digital payments as their chance to do direct transactions with their customers electronically rather than pay those fees. That's the real end game. Get your customer using your app then get them to hook into your bank account a la Target Red Card, cut Visa/MC/Amex out of the loop.
Why are you even posting on the internet then!?!? They’ve already got you!!!
If US issued debit cards required chip + PIN for every single in-person transaction (and 2FA for online ones), fraud would likely be low enough that any differences in how it's handled would be moot. Of course, the vast majority of places* that ask for PIN let you skip it and 2FA isn't really a thing (nor do I see either ever changing), so yeah.
* Except Kroger, apparently. (Plus a few others, namely Costco and most Arco locations. But those two are more due to not accepting any/most credit cards and not due to wanting to save a few cents on their transaction costs.)
** Speaking of transaction costs, "security" is a BS excuse IMO. As someone with one of the few credit cards that prefers PIN over signature, many of those merchants actually don't ask for it for small transactions. Off the top of my head, that includes Walgreens, Target and 7-Eleven--and likely others. Meanwhile, insert a debit card and those same places ask for PIN regardless of the transaction amount. Yeah, I might be a bit too invested in the whole EMV thing for someone who doesn't actually work in the industry.
This is even worse than the stupid scheme that Walmart and Rite Aid tried to duopolize. At least their systems processed payments through ACH so they could avoid credit card processing fees. This dumb idea doesn't even accomplish that.
Hey Safeway, want to steal a bunch of Kroger business? Turn on Apple Pay and you've got a new customer for life.
Hey Safeway, want to steal a bunch of Kroger business? Turn on Apple Pay and you've got a new customer for life.
I’ve complained to Kroger about lack of Apple Pay several times.
They’re giving me fewer and fewer reasons to shop there instead of Walmart neighborhood market.
They’re giving me fewer and fewer reasons to shop there instead of Walmart neighborhood market.
This. Merchants have been fighting the networks on interchange fees for literally decades. Some of the major ones are likely going to opt out of the class action lawsuit/settlement I linked, in fact, because they think it doesn't go far enough.
Hell, thanks to anti-surcharge laws recently being ruled unconstitutional, I wouldn't be surprised if most merchants flat out start charging extra for card transactions. Well, more than they already do anyway.
Bringing us back to the current situation with contactless acceptance in the US, Visa/MC offering concessions on interchange for NFC transactions would likely convince some of the remaining holdouts. I'm not sure how much those concessions would need to be though, and I'm not sure the networks would be willing to even entertain the possibility (especially if the only acceptable interchange fee is something like the EU's 0.2-0.3% cap or stricter).
They do, though.
2020: Another pay system bites the dust. Kroger switches to Apple Pay.
CNN reports "Trump tax plan causes Kroger to fire 200 developers".
CNN reports "Trump tax plan causes Kroger to fire 200 developers".
Meijer's uses Apple Pay. But to be honest, at Krogers, I stick my actual credit card in the reader when they start ringing stuff up, flash my Ralph's card like The Dude, pull out my card, and I'm done and headed for the door. Not having to sign the reader makes Apple Pay not so much of a necessity. So 'Kroger Pay' is going to go over like being accosted by Harri Krishna's at the checkout. NOPE!!! Ain't happening. Hard pass. Meijer's is where I shop mostly anyway... If Kroger's supported Apple Pay, I'm sure I'd go there more often. Their loss.
[doublepost=1550107951][/doublepost]I also remember seeing a little sticker near the credit card reader at Home Despot, years ago. I asked if they were using Apple Pay, and they said it was 'part of a trial'. Most people, the cashier said, don't use it. I did. Then it was gone. Years pass, and now supposedly they do support Apple Pay, but I don't shop there as much. *shrug*
[doublepost=1550107951][/doublepost]I also remember seeing a little sticker near the credit card reader at Home Despot, years ago. I asked if they were using Apple Pay, and they said it was 'part of a trial'. Most people, the cashier said, don't use it. I did. Then it was gone. Years pass, and now supposedly they do support Apple Pay, but I don't shop there as much. *shrug*
That's good to hear. I live in LA and the local Safeway brands are Vons and Pavillions. They do not have Apple Pay here. I wish they did.
I live down the street from a Vons and they definitely support it. The UI isn't exactly the best though.
Absolutely noone in the world wants to set up bank account info, sign up for accounts, install a different dumb app for every dumb store they go too. Think about if instead of Visa/Master/Amex you’d have 200 credit cards for each store you might visit at some point. Insanity
Kroger in SoCal is called Ralphs. The other competition in the area, Vons (Safeway elsewhere) also does not accept Apple Pay. It's plain dumb. I've assisted clients setup their CC terminals (at hotels) and NFC and Apple Pay "just work". Not sure why Kroger thinks it's so hard to make work. Are they sticking their nose up to it because Apple charges more than a normal CC processing company?
Kroger trialed setting up a biometric - thumb print based - payment in a few places about 10 years ago or so with the first self-checkouts. I tried it and it seemed to work well but that was before all the breeches.
These days I have no desire to hand over my card numbers and especially not my bank account numbers to retailers. That is why AP is so attractive.
I wonder what all is going to be encoded in the QR code. I wonder how long before someone reverse engineers it.
And as somebody above mentioned, this seems to be just something that will take longer at the checkout. Especially as Kroger seems to have the fastest card processing POS terminals I have encountered.
These days I have no desire to hand over my card numbers and especially not my bank account numbers to retailers. That is why AP is so attractive.
I wonder what all is going to be encoded in the QR code. I wonder how long before someone reverse engineers it.
And as somebody above mentioned, this seems to be just something that will take longer at the checkout. Especially as Kroger seems to have the fastest card processing POS terminals I have encountered.
Apple doesn’t charge more though. The cut Apple gets of each transaction comes from the bank, not the merchant. The merchant can’t tell the difference if you used a contactless credit card versus Apple Pay or Google Pay.
I set it up and then scanned the QR code with a reader app. Whatever they’ve got in there, it’s hashed and encrypted.
I’ve blacked out most of it just in case someone does crack it... no shopping spree for strangers on MacRumors!
