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MCX Member Best Buy Begins Accepting Apple Pay in App, In-Store Support Coming
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Ok, but when has 'cumbersome', and ridiculousness ever stopped a determined corporation pushing a product or service.
I'm thinking of Windows 8.x here, and their phone OS's.
Totally agree. Today, every store has some sort of rewards program that allows them to track your purchasing habits and in return gives you some type of reward. From what I have seem of CurrentC is that it adds nothing to this paradigm, yet it takes away the convinience of the credit card. At some level, using Apple Pay adds convinience to the customer, but takes away the ability to track purchasing habits. So at that level I can understand why some vendors may be hesitating. Still, if they have a strong reward card, they can get thier information that way. The vendors need to understand that consumer convinience will always trump the vendor desire to track. This is why reward programs have been the only successful way to track. Give us Apple Pay and a reward program and we will tell you everything you want to know.
This is exactly what I was thinking. I already give CVS my phone number before I shop, they can track me with that. Hell they already have my address and phone number. So why NOT let me pay with Apple Pay? You already have my information!Totally agree. Today, every store has some sort of rewards program that allows them to track your purchasing habits and in return gives you some type of reward. From what I have seem of CurrentC is that it adds nothing to this paradigm, yet it takes away the convinience of the credit card. At some level, using Apple Pay adds convinience to the customer, but takes away the ability to track purchasing habits. So at that level I can understand why some vendors may be hesitating. Still, if they have a strong reward card, they can get thier information that way. The vendors need to understand that consumer convinience will always trump the vendor desire to track. This is why reward programs have been the only successful way to track. Give us Apple Pay and a reward program and we will tell you everything you want to know.
The whole CurrentC movement has been laughable to me from the beginning.
Was just a matter of time before merchants like Best Buy started seeing the error of their ways.
That Ron Paul GIF is the best thing I've seen in awhile!
Was just a matter of time before merchants like Best Buy started seeing the error of their ways.
That Ron Paul GIF is the best thing I've seen in awhile!
The vendor always has had the option of ditching CurrentC but then they are out for good and lose the money they have put into it so far. Best Buy finally decided to ditch CurrentC and use Apple Pay. I had nothing to do with an agreement expiring.
That's not what the update at the bottom of the original story indicates:
According to sources that spoke to Re/code, Best Buy won't begin accepting Apple Pay until later in 2015 because its MCX exclusivity agreements don't expire until the summer of 2015. A Best Buy spokesperson told Re/code that the company remains invested in MCX, but did not say the company will offer MCX when it launches.
I completely agree with you and for the longest time (well ever since Circuit City went out of business), I have been wondering when it would be BB's turn to go. However, I think that as the need for technology continues to grow the need for hardware (e.g., router, hard drive, phones, laptop etc...) as well as services, repairs and such will continue to grow as well.
With that said, one can argue that why are people still shop at BB when online stores such as Amazon are cheaper and almost just as convenient. I think the answer is that like everything else in life, not everyone is a wizard in what they need to accomplish, also not everyone has a friend that knows a thing or two about technology. For some people shopping for a computer or a router is as daunting as getting a car, and quite frankly probably even more confusing at times. At least with cars people can relate more easily, try explaining HP vs. CPU speed to an older person.
So giving that the need for hardware/service are still required, I think the market has now reached an equilibrium. With the demise of Circuit City, and Radio Shack, I think the customers are now redirect back to BB. So even thought they lost customer base to online retailers, they gained by out surviving other tech stores.
Lastly, have you seen the price they charge to "repair" computers? Most of the issues I bet they just ended up running a restore using the factory reset which takes about 10 minutes to do and just leave the computer running for the next hour or so. And frankly if it's really a hardware problem, BB would most likely have to send it back for repair anyways. I doubt they have much ability to replace a laptop's mother board or other similar fixes.
Maybe Apple Pay should support digital gift cards, and then Best Buy should accept those.
I'm actually okay with pulling up an app that shows QR code and let the POS scans it. I do this with Starbucks in my Passbook app.
It's not as fast as Apple Pay, but it's not slow like some pricks paying with a check or coins. I'm okay with retailers trying to save cost on processing fee.
The only concern is security issue, adding Checking account info to MCX. With Home Depot, Target, Kmart, Albertson's, all got hacked, it's a serious concern.
It's not as fast as Apple Pay, but it's not slow like some pricks paying with a check or coins. I'm okay with retailers trying to save cost on processing fee.
The only concern is security issue, adding Checking account info to MCX. With Home Depot, Target, Kmart, Albertson's, all got hacked, it's a serious concern.
Starbucks' app is good because of the rewards (and because it mostly deals with gift cards, which can be reloaded via CC or Apple Pay).
Best Buy (prior to my reading this article) said in 2 weeks - 1 month they are getting new payment terminals!
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Now for Kroger / Target / Dicks then I'm set.
I'd switch to Target for my every week grocery shopping.
I really wish Safeway/Vons would get NFC support. They haven't even upgraded to EMV capable terminals yet. Albertson's is also nearby and does have NFC, but you're required to give the clerk the last four of the DAN and sign for the purchase if it's over $50, making it way less convenient than just using a card.
Albertson's is also nearby and does have NFC, but you're required to give the clerk the last four of the DAN and sign for the purchase if it's over $50, making it way less convenient than just using a card.
I've heard of conflicting information from people, some say there is exclusivity, while someone said that a Target exec said that there was no exclusivity at all, but I'd say that something is holding CVS and Rite Aid from turning it on right away, maybe the same reason BB is holding off, because they don't have the new equipment rolled out completely yet.
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That would be amazing.
But I don't know that it'll happen. I feel like a major appeal of selling gift cards is the fact that you're taking money and giving credit, which may or may not ever be redeemed, in return. If they did something to substantially improve the odds of a gift card being redeemed, that would be bad.
Do you mean when will they start selling the Apple Watch? If that is the question, then my educated guess will be late June. Right after WWDC.
Remember, not even the Apple Store is selling the Apple Watch right now. Only Apple.com
But Best Buy does sell Apple Watch accessories, we got screen protectors from Zagg last week (just bought mine yesterday) and they are getting more accessories in the coming weeks.
Yeah, but if they made it easier this way to buy gift cards this way, more people might buy them, and then they can only spend that credit in Best Buy. Maybe the increased gift card sales would more than make up for the fact that people could more easily spend all their credit without wasting it. We could hope that this is true, but personally, I don't like digital gifts.
Now we just wait for the biggest domino of them all (Walmart) to fall and that will be the end of CurrentC. It will also signal the beginning of widespread Apple Pay adoption across the US.
That might be a while. From my understanding Walmart doesn't have NFC turned on at all in any country that they're operating in and their current management is very anti-payment card.