Kroger Begins Accepting Apple Pay After Years of Holding Out

[Brad7]

Let’s gooooo! Paid today with my Watch 🥳🥳🥳

They definitely need Apple Pay stickers, though. There’s no way to tell and I only knew after I tried.

 

[Cobannvs]

Kroger pay is an abomination. They don't have any idea how to make something easy or quick. Launching an app and then going into that app to get a QR code to then scan physically is not something you want to see anyone do - it's like the equivalent of seeing someone be told "that'll be 32.50 ma'am" and then seeing them act surprised that they need to pay, and open up their purse to rummage for the chequebook and a pen and start writing. It's like scary slow.

Contactless payment should be standard, and not just Apple Pay. Kroger just are incredibly cheap and won't modernize. It's pretty bad honestly when my 7-11 will take anything but Kroger will not.

Bear in mind that Kroger claimed they did this before in a similar limited market and claimed that there wasn't a lot of desire for it. Don't be fooled - they are only trying to prevent modernization and that expense.

I use Kroger pay all the time.
It’s not as convenient as Apple Pay at first glance, but the QR code it provides not only pays for the transaction, it also provides your Kroger card details and you can load it with digital coupons. Given all that, if you take the time to set it up, it becomes more convenient.
I created a Siri shortcut, so when I’m checking out I just hold the lock button which activates Siri and say Kroger
It automatically opens the app to the Kroger pay QR and uses my Face ID to authenticate.

Also, at the kroger gas station you can open the app and pay for gas at your specified pump and you don’t have to scan anything at all
Just open the Pay app, put in the pump number and how much you want and the pump starts
Great for like a mom who has a teenager that can pump gas, she can pay from inside the car, and all they have to do is get out and pumped.

 

[dontwalkhand]

I use Kroger pay all the time.
It’s not as convenient as Apple Pay at first glance, but the QR code it provides not only pays for the transaction, it also provides your Kroger card details and you can load it with digital coupons. Given all that, if you take the time to set it up, it becomes more convenient.
I created a Siri shortcut, so when I’m checking out I just hold the lock button which activates Siri and say Kroger
It automatically opens the app to the Kroger pay QR and uses my Face ID to authenticate.

Also, at the kroger gas station you can open the app and pay for gas at your specified pump and you don’t have to scan anything at all
Just open the Pay app, put in the pump number and how much you want and the pump starts
Great for like a mom who has a teenager that can pump gas, she can pay from inside the car, and all they have to do is get out and pumped.

Dang it, I am going to go get gas tonight now just to try out this feature. I will still use Kroger pay for gas, and use Apple Pay inside the store for this reason alone.

Though how do you access gas in the app? I don't see the option, just for regular Kroger Pay. Right now I have to use Apple Pay at the window. I will admit, when I use the feature at other stations like Shell, even though they have Apple Pay on the pump itself, being able to start the pump from inside the car feels like I am living in the future!

 

[dontwalkhand]

Let’s gooooo! Paid today with my Watch 🥳🥳🥳

View attachment 2218211

They definitely need Apple Pay stickers, though. There’s no way to tell and I only knew after I tried.

The only way to tell is the word "Tap" on the terminal, and the four virtual contactless lights at the top of the screen. Apparently the signage is coming, but they were backordered!

 

[name99]

I use Kroger pay all the time.
It’s not as convenient as Apple Pay at first glance, but the QR code it provides not only pays for the transaction, it also provides your Kroger card details and you can load it with digital coupons. Given all that, if you take the time to set it up, it becomes more convenient.
I created a Siri shortcut, so when I’m checking out I just hold the lock button which activates Siri and say Kroger
It automatically opens the app to the Kroger pay QR and uses my Face ID to authenticate.

Also, at the kroger gas station you can open the app and pay for gas at your specified pump and you don’t have to scan anything at all
Just open the Pay app, put in the pump number and how much you want and the pump starts
Great for like a mom who has a teenager that can pump gas, she can pay from inside the car, and all they have to do is get out and pumped.

Kroger (or at least Ralphs) have ****ed up digital coupons so often I'm through even bothering with them. The constant pattern I found, when I tried to use them, was "digital coupon sounds good; check out; oh yay -- the item I bought PRECISELY BECAUSE it was supposed to be a good deal mysteriously was not sold at that good deal price".

You have no recourse when this happens, and it was happening ALL THE TIME...

 

[vinegarshots]

I use Kroger pay all the time.
It’s not as convenient as Apple Pay at first glance, but the QR code it provides not only pays for the transaction, it also provides your Kroger card details and you can load it with digital coupons. Given all that, if you take the time to set it up, it becomes more convenient.
I created a Siri shortcut, so when I’m checking out I just hold the lock button which activates Siri and say Kroger
It automatically opens the app to the Kroger pay QR and uses my Face ID to authenticate.

Also, at the kroger gas station you can open the app and pay for gas at your specified pump and you don’t have to scan anything at all
Just open the Pay app, put in the pump number and how much you want and the pump starts
Great for like a mom who has a teenager that can pump gas, she can pay from inside the car, and all they have to do is get out and pumped.

Here's the thing-- Fred Meyer (a Kroger store) in my experience, overcharges for most of the brand-name items it sells, and the only way to get a reasonable price is to use coupons to compensate. That is idiotic to me. It causes way more work for me as a customer, just to be presented with fair prices for items. So having a Kroger app, to make it more convenient to deal with the inconvenience that they are purposefully making a part of their shopping experience, is not actually a good thing.

 

[BijouMan]

It’s not like these companies don’t have contactless terminals. Every single terminal available today has contactless, but these companies refuse to turn them on. No business or company outside the United States would dare turn off the contactless function. It doesn’t help companies to say “oh, we’re working on it.” How on earth does it take so much work just to turn on a function that should be on by default?

 

[tmiw]

It’s not like these companies don’t have contactless terminals. Every single terminal available today has contactless, but these companies refuse to turn them on. No business or company outside the United States would dare turn off the contactless function. It doesn’t help companies to say “oh, we’re working on it.” How on earth does it take so much work just to turn on a function that should be on by default?

There's a lot more integration with the backend stuff than in many other countries. Not that it excuses anyone with it still disabled in 2023, mind you, but it does explain why many just focused on chip acceptance initially.

Really, contactless should have been mandatory along with chip in order to avoid the liability shift. I'd even have been okay extending the original EMV liability shift from 2015 to like 2018 to make that happen.

 

[lartola]

It’s not like these companies don’t have contactless terminals. Every single terminal available today has contactless, but these companies refuse to turn them on. No business or company outside the United States would dare turn off the contactless function. It doesn’t help companies to say “oh, we’re working on it.” How on earth does it take so much work just to turn on a function that should be on by default?

Oh it’s not just in the US. In Mexico, too, several businesses still dare to have contactless turned off. Some are the same from the US (Walmart, Home Depot, HEB), but there are some local holdouts too such as oxxo convenience stores, Cinemex movie theaters or Coppel department stores. A notorious local holdout is grupo Alsea, which runs all the Starbucks cafeterias within Mexico. Because of their refusal to turn on contactless, Mexico seems to be the only country in the world where Starbucks only takes chip payments (if they want to they could still take contactless using the standalone wireless POS they have as a backup for when the integrated system is down, but at many Starbucks locations the staff simply refuses to do so upon request).

 

[0423MAC]

The kroger app is an abomination that needs a complete rework from the ground up.

 

[BijouMan]

Oh it’s not just in the US. In Mexico, too, several businesses still dare to have contactless turned off. Some are the same from the US (Walmart, Home Depot, HEB), but there are some local holdouts too such as oxxo convenience stores, Cinemex movie theaters or Coppel department stores. A notorious local holdout is grupo Alsea, which runs all the Starbucks cafeterias within Mexico. Because of their refusal to turn on contactless, Mexico seems to be the only country in the world where Starbucks only takes chip payments (if they want to they could still take contactless using the standalone wireless POS they have as a backup for when the integrated system is down, but at many Starbucks locations the staff simply refuses to do so upon request).

Contactless transactions are EMV transactions. Contactless transactions go through the system pretty much the same way as if the card were inserted directly. Also, as a foreigner, most machines try to get you to accept dynamic currency conversion if you insert a card, whereas if you tap a device/card, this is usually bypassed.

 

[tmiw]

Also, as a foreigner, most machines try to get you to accept dynamic currency conversion if you insert a card, whereas if you tap a device/card, this is usually bypassed.

That's not actually true; DCC is in fact possible with contactless.

That said, DCC is pretty uncommon in the US anyway from what I hear (and is easy to bypass when it does occur).

 

[lartola]

That's not actually true; DCC is in fact possible with contactless.

That said, DCC is pretty uncommon in the US anyway from what I hear (and is easy to bypass when it does occur).

But usually it’s not automatic. At all the places where I’ve run into DCC -and btw I’ve always run into it when paying contactless, never seen it when paying via chip- the POS machine will actually ask whether to use it or not. That being said, DCC isn’t good for either one of the two parties: for the customers it means not getting the best currency exchange rate, which is usually offered by their card issuer and not by the merchant’s payment processor, and for the merchants it means they’ll have to pay a higher credit card transaction fee than if DCC weren’t used.

 

[tmiw]

the POS machine will actually ask whether to use it or not.

Yeah, that's how they're supposed to do it. In other places it's apparently not guaranteed that they won't just select USD for you (as an example), but this depends on the country.

 

[garyjones027]

Oh it’s not just in the US. In Mexico, too, several businesses still dare to have contactless turned off. Some are the same from the US (Walmart, Home Depot, HEB), but there are some local holdouts too such as oxxo convenience stores, Cinemex movie theaters or Coppel department stores. A notorious local holdout is grupo Alsea, which runs all the Starbucks cafeterias within Mexico. Because of their refusal to turn on contactless, Mexico seems to be the only country in the world where Starbucks only takes chip payments (if they want to they could still take contactless using the standalone wireless POS they have as a backup for when the integrated system is down, but at many Starbucks locations the staff simply refuses to do so upon request).

Do all the Starbucks stores in Mexico not have contactless payments?

 

[lartola]

Do all the Starbucks stores in Mexico not have contactless payments?

No they don’t. At least not by default, since it’s disabled on the pinpads hooked up to the cash register computers. They also have wireless terminals as a backup in case the system goes down and those do have contactless enabled, but more often than not the staff isn’t willing to use them upon request by a customer.

 

[michaelsanchez0027]

But usually it’s not automatic. At all the places where I’ve run into DCC -and btw I’ve always run into it when paying contactless, never seen it when paying via chip- the POS machine will actually ask whether to use it or not. That being said, DCC isn’t good for either one of the two parties: for the customers it means not getting the best currency exchange rate, which is usually offered by their card issuer and not by the merchant’s payment processor, and for the merchants it means they’ll have to pay a higher credit card transaction fee than if DCC weren’t used.

Which countries asks for DCC when you use your card in a card payment machine?

 

[lartola]

Which countries asks for DCC when you use your card in a card payment machine?

I know Mexico does sometimes. I don’t know which others do the same, though.

 

[Alan Wynn]

Just confirmed today that Lowe’s now accepts Apple Pay in store. From what I understand, it has not yet rolled out to every store in the system, so it is best to check with them over the phone before you go. That means that Home Depot is the last place I go on a regular basis that does not offer it.

 

[dontwalkhand]

Just confirmed today that Lowe’s now accepts Apple Pay in store. From what I understand, it has not yet rolled out to every store in the system, so it is best to check with them over the phone before you go. That means that Home Depot is the last place I go on a regular basis that does not offer it.

Home Depot I hope will follow soon, that literally would mean almost everywhere would have Apple Pay. I say Almost because of Walmart. Otherwise it would literally be everywhere for me. For now, I am actually okay with Walmart Pay.

 

[tmiw]

Home Depot I hope will follow soon, that literally would mean almost everywhere would have Apple Pay. I say Almost because of Walmart. Otherwise it would literally be everywhere for me. For now, I am actually okay with Walmart Pay.

I'm not even sure why HD doesn't already support it. They don't have their own Walmart Pay-type thing, for one. Plus, they push their private label CC hard enough that it's probably helping with their CC processing costs as it is (and would still get them the data collection they're looking for--albeit not for every card transaction like now--assuming they wanted that data).

At least for Walmart, they have their own app and push curbside pickup/delivery like they'd rather you do that instead (making NFC moot anyway if most people took them up on getting stuff delivered or taken to their cars for them).

 

[Alan Wynn]

Home Depot I hope will follow soon, that literally would mean almost everywhere would have Apple Pay. I say Almost because of Walmart. Otherwise it would literally be everywhere for me. For now, I am actually okay with Walmart Pay.

If Home Depot supported it, all the big retailers at which I shop regularly would support it. I do not shop at Walmart regularly, and will probably never use their own app, unless they offered Apple Pay in it (like Lowes did before they started offering it in store).

 

[dontwalkhand]

If Home Depot supported it, all the big retailers at which I shop regularly would support it. I do not shop at Walmart regularly, and will probably never use their own app, unless they offered Apple Pay in it (like Lowes did before they started offering it in store).

I wish they would just turn on Apple Pay, but right now, they made the QR code scanning experience pretty decent. You don't even have to open the app, just have it installed. Then you open up the camera app and just scan it and it'll do it all for you.

I use Scan and Go there so I have to use the app anyways.

 

[Alan Wynn]

I wish they would just turn on Apple Pay, but right now, they made the QR code scanning experience pretty decent. You don't even have to open the app, just have it installed. Then you open up the camera app and just scan it and it'll do it all for you.

Does it work on an Apple Watch? As I said, I do not shop there very often, but there is a Wal*Mart along one of the routes that I run/jog/walk (depending on the day and my mood). I often do not have my iPhone with me, just my Apple Watch, and might stop there to grab a protein bar and/or a Gatorade/Powerade.

I use Scan and Go there so I have to use the app anyways.

I do not want to have to maintain my credit cards in one more app and I do not want anyone having that information to sell or exploit. Hence no app that does not use Apple Pay for payment.

 

[lartola]

I'm not even sure why HD doesn't already support it. They don't have their own Walmart Pay-type thing, for one. Plus, they push their private label CC hard enough that it's probably helping with their CC processing costs as it is (and would still get them the data collection they're looking for--albeit not for every card transaction like now--assuming they wanted that data).

At least for Walmart, they have their own app and push curbside pickup/delivery like they'd rather you do that instead (making NFC moot anyway if most people took them up on getting stuff delivered or taken to their cars for them).

Maybe pushing curbside pickup and delivery would make having nfc in store moot, but it wouldn’t necessarily make taking apple pay or google pay moot since walmart could still add the respective buttons to accept them in its app and on its website.