Starbucks still wants you to use their app to pay for your drinks, and people still seem to be doing so.
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'Walmart Pay' Mobile Wallet Rolls Out to Nearly 600 Stores in Texas and Arkansas
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Starbucks still wants you to use their app to pay for your drinks, and people still seem to be doing so.
LOL right. The alternative would be like trying to use Pay at the Apple Store and no employee being trained to use it, or know how, or even that they have it.
Why would you even question this? I suppose it's possible, but Wal-Mart seems to be rolling this out methodically, why would they risk it failing because they just leave it up to their minimum wage part time workers to figure it out on their on?
Wal-Mart may be cheap and heartless, but they are a very effective, well organized business. They have a captive audience and cashiers able to implement the new system effectively. If they weren't training them, why bother having test markets? Just flip the switch worldwide and hope their employees get up to speed ...
So yes, unless they are complete idiots, Walmart has a significant advantage over Pay in adoption.
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You shouldn't feed the trolls. ;-)
I can't tell you the number of times I have used the Wendy's app to pay for food in Wendy's and the cashier has looked at me like I'm from another planet and had to call a manager for help. Then they act like I've done black magic when the payment goes through. All the while the poster for the Wendy's app was on the front of the register in every Wendy's I went in! And yes, I do think the talent in Walmart is probably closer to Wendy's than to Apple. That's why I asked if you'd actually seen it used. And from your response I'll take it you haven't. You are just supposing much like I supposed that Wendy's personnel would know how their app worked....especially since they bothered to hang up posters touting it. I was often told I'm the only person who ever used it...so I'm also guessing Walmart will end up disappointed that most of their customers don't go through the trouble of setting it up, even if it's actually very little trouble at all.
Incidentally I believe Wendy's app is an early version of CurrentC as they were charter members of MCX. The app generates a 6 digit number that you show the cashier to type in to pay. This is instead of a QR Code so they didn't need scanners. The number is good for 5 minutes and changes with each transaction. It isn't really that hard to use and I'm sure Walmart's isn't either.
But the weakness will be employee training. Just as it was at places like Subway with ApplePay and was at Wendy's with their solution. Unfortunately consumers don't seem that interested and without the interest the merchants really don't get traction supporting it. Even if Walmart does train everyone, if it doesn't get used, the training will be lost within a week. And then the cashiers will be left to marvel when an occasional early adopter geek like me comes in and uses it. But fragmenting into individual merchant apps isn't going to help.
I'm fine with ApplePay/AndroidPay/SamsungPay, etc as long as they are all roughly equivalent and all use the same underlying NFC technology. If stores want their customer info, let them integrate their loyalty cards via the same technology. Walgreens is on the right track except for having to do 2 NFC scans, once for loyalty card and once for credit card.
And Starbucks probably skews more tech aware. Certainly not everyone in the line there uses their app either. I would consider it a huge improvement if I could just ApplePay rather than having to find the QRCode in my Wallet. If the Starbucks loyalty info was in my app then it could get that as well and automatically update my loyalty stars. Starbucks created their system before there was a better system so that was fine. It seems as though they are migrating as they now take in app ApplePay and I believe they are supposed to be taking it in stores soon.
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Wendy's and Walmart are not the same at all. The volume and amount of purchases are considerably different, thereby creating some incentive to make WalMart pay more successful, than Wendy's which was is a mere marketing convenience. And Apple didn't train Subway employees to use Pay, which again is a convenience to a likely minority of its customers. When Starbuck's app first rolled out, their employees didn't understand how to use it either. But that was years ago. Things have changed considerably, the public is much more aware of the tech, and expectations are higher.
WalMart has a real chance to make an impact here and have a lot to gain or lose from its success or failure. Whatever dim view you take of the average minimum wage employee, they do manage to operate a rather complex POST, which is accomplished by training. So making employees aware of WalMart Pay and training them how to use it is likely not beyond their capabilities, and it could well be a priority for WalMart where even the Starbucks app wasn't for Starbucks when it rolled out as a marketing convenience to a likely minority of its customers. Indeed it should be a priority for WalMart, and by all observations it is, considering a slow roll out in test markets to both train and learn from the training, as well as how to make the process flawless before they expand it worldwide.
The majority of WalMarts customers likely have a smartphone, and this app represents a way to lock in its cutomers. Apple has none of the control WalMart has, so it would be virtually impossible for Apple to control the end customer experience, putting walmart in a unique position to establish a major consumer pay system, once tried and tested, to roll out to other businesses, including Wendy's -- where the Wendy's employees don't have to know how to use it since WalMart has already trained their likely mostly mutual customers how to use it. There's a lot more at stake here.
I've used a digital pay service once in the UK, it took a second or so to beep, making me wonder if it had gone through, and I felt a bit silly doing it tbh, my contact less bank card is instant, I have to take both out of my pocket anyway, and as one is faster, its a no brainer which one I use.