“After shunning Apple Pay last fall, drugstore chain Rite Aid is reversing course,” Leena Rao reports for Fortune. “The company announced this morning that it will start accepting Apple’s mobile payments technology at all of Rite Aid’s nearly 4,600 stores in the U.S starting Saturday, August 15.”
“Last October, Rite Aid reportedly disabled Apple Pay in favor of accepting a rival mobile payments system that was being developed by a group of merchants, also known as the Merchant Customer Exchange (MCX). Other MCX retailers included CVS, Target, Best Buy, and Walmart,” Rao reports. “Rite Aid isn’t the first MCX merchant to start accepting Apple Pay—Best Buy also started accepting the payments technology earlier this year. Dunkin’ Donuts and Kohl’s have said they will start rolling out Apple Pay by the end of the year. And Target has been accepting Apple Pay within its app since October.”
Rao reports, “It’s unclear where these developments leave CurrentC’s prospects as a viable alternative to Apple Pay…”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: It’s clear to us: CurrentC is DOA.
Our boycott of Rite-Aid ends this Saturday.
Please continue to boycott CVS, Walmart, and any other company that willfully turns off NFC in a effort to block the vastly more secure, much more private, and far easier-to-use Apple Pay service.
SEE ALSO:
Apple Pay rival ‘CurrentC’ to get limited trial run in stores next month – July 24, 2015
Apple Pay stands to gain from MCX’s CurrentC disarray – May 18, 2015
Apple Pay is destroying MCX’s CurrentC – May 11, 2015
Best Buy capitulates, to accept Apple Pay despite CurrentC allegiance – April 27, 2015
Major retailers see Apple Pay wave – November 17, 2014
In only 3 weeks, Apple Pay is changing how consumers pay – November 17, 2014
Boycott CVS and Rite Aid – October 27, 2014
Bad business: CVS and Rite Aid antagonize their most well-heeled customers by blocking Apple Pay – October 27, 2014
CVS stores reportedly disabling NFC to shut down Apple Pay – October 25, 2014
iPhone users earn significantly more than those who settle for Android phones – October 8, 2014
Yet more proof that Android is for poor people – June 27, 2014
More proof that Android is for poor people – May 13, 2014
Apple’s iOS dominates in richer countries, Android in poorer regions – March 25, 2014
Twitter heat map shows iPhone use by the affluent, Android by the poor – June 20, 2013
iPhone users smarter, richer than Android phone users – August 16, 2011
Yankee Group: Apple iPhone owners shop more, buy more, remain more loyal vs. other device users – July 20, 2010
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “eldernorm” for the heads up.]
Unfortunately for Rite Aide, I have already discovered how great Walgreens is…too little, too late!
Ditto that & CVS. And Walgreens is closer to me too. Sometimes you don’t get back what you so callously and thoughtlessly eschew from consumer preference. The lesson is “take payment any way you can, you freaking Bozo’s!” Or take no payment at all. How’s that for your bottom line?
Sorry CVS. My switch to Walgreens back last October remains
in play. The character of your business/customer relations
does not change due to this apparent change to Apple Pay.
Principle, character and integrity count, no matter what so many in this land now forsake.
Well said.
It would have to arrive for to be DOA. This is looking more like DUD – Dead Under Development.
CurrentC is DBA (dead before arrival)
CurrentC is a bad idea by a greedy WalMart that may never see the light of day. I seldom ever go to wallymart, and then only to go straight to what I need, pay and leave….. if they have one in stock. Often I am met with a blank space, then a blank stare by a blue vest person… gawd I hate that place
When Target fully supports Apple Pay (in store) I think the flood gates will open. CurrentC will be a non-factor imo. Also I could see Walmart accepting ApplePay by 2017.
Apple pay is going to be ubiquitous very soon at a planet near you.
The single, biggest constraint on Apple Pay is the limited (yes, even though it is millions it is still limited) number of devices that currently support Apple Pay. That will change in September.
By this time next year we can expect that the number of devices in the wild that support Apple Pay will be more than double those that support it today. Just think of 250 to 300 million devices that support Apple Pay. Once that large a user base exists, virtually no brick and mortar vendor of any size is going to exclude Apple Pay.
Also, I expect Apple to roll out Apple Pay to most of Europe, Canada, and several major countries in the Pacific Rim by the end of 2016. By that time, Apple Pay may become nearly as pervasive as credit cards themselves.
I ask about Apple Pay everywhere I go. Still amazing the blank stares back. I have been using Apple Pay at Round Table, I still have to train their employees how it works. This is not Apple’s fault, but an example of the uphill battle, digital payments face. October 2015, is the end of the line for “Swipe & Sign” I see the new equipment out there, but none of it works. I think this is HDTV all over again.
Certainly this can’t be that hard. Who is holding this back????
The merchants and the banks. They’re both ignoring their responsibility to train NFC terminal owners how to setup Pay transactions. I know of a Bank of America employee who didn’t tell their merchant about Pay because he thought it was “no big deal”. And that merchant in turn didn’t know he had acquired Pay compatible terminals. So none of his employees knew how to prepare a sale for an Pay purchase. I had to personally educate the merchant after calling all over the country to find out his new terminals were Pay ready.
Plus I had to install the signage for Pay on his door and terminal.😖
That is incredibly proactive FM. That company should pay you a consulting fee!
You can see and tell they are ready, by the brand of the reader and also if they have a chipped card slot. Like you said, they are clueless.
Rite-Aid is consistently wrong-minded regarding offering benefits to their customers. I think of them as the rat hair version of a pharmacy. Not a nice company, in my personal experience. But they have their uses.
After telling their customers that they will be using CurrentC because ApplePay is insecure and already ben hacked, this will a switch for Rite-Aid.
Yes, they really told me that.