Yoni Heisler reports for TUAW, “This past October, Chipotle Chief Marketing Officer Mark Crumpacker remarked during an earnings conference call: ‘Well, right now, we don’t have imminent plans to roll out Apple Pay support. It’s something we’re considering for 2015. There are considerable technological constraints to implementing it just based on the way payments are processed with our system. We are in the process of readying the launch of our new ordering app in November. And when we do a rev of that — in the middle of next year is our anticipated time — we might include ApplePay. It’s just a little bit too early for us to tell just given that we haven’t sorted out all of the back-end issues.'”
“Now with 2015 well under way, Chipotle recently attended the ICR XChange conference in Florida,” Heisler reports. “Reporting from the festivities, Jonathan Maze of nations Restaurant News relayed that Chipotle remains ‘very interested’ in Apple Pay.”
Chipotle: Only 1% of orders come through a smartphone. But company is "very interested" in Apple Pay and how that plays out. #ICRXChange
— Jonathan Maze (@jonathanmaze) January 13, 2015
Read more in the full article here.
Ordering and pickup in the store is reasonably speedy now, making the use of an app for pre-ordering less compelling. In addition, when you’re there watching them make your burrito, you can easily say, “more rice, more beans,” which cannot be done on the app. In my opinion, the reason Chipotle doesn’t get more orders through smart phones is the design of their app. You would think it would be simple to use, but it could use some work.
Actually, pre-ordering isn’t the only advantage. The ability to pay without carrying a credit card, and to pay even more quickly, is where another advantage lies.
In fact, in these early days of Apple Pay, I’ll bet there are many iPhone users who specifically target businesses that accept it just for the novelty and fun of it (yesterday I chose Walgreen’s instead of the CVS across the street, strictly on the basis of Apple Pay).
i’m very interested in Chipotle adding Apple Pay.
One of the few fast food establishments who use fresh “real food.”
“Only 1% of orders come through a smartphone.”
That’s a completely irrelevant comment and tells me he doesn’t get it.
Chipotle’s problem is that their credit card acceptors are built into the side of their POS terminals. They’re going to have to roll out completely new credit card systems to take Apple Pay, or even just EMV chip cards.
——RM
Our Chipotle is terrible. And they over-salt their chips all the while itemizing everything. Moe’s Southwest Grill is far tastier and it’s more like Subway where you just tell them what you want on it and there you go. Better selection.
Yeah… fsck you Chipotle.
Chipotle caved to muslim threats and removed pork from their menu in many markets.
Cowards!