“Wal-Mart Stores Inc. is planning to offer its own way for shoppers to pay with their smartphones in its stores, setting itself up as a competitor to Apple Inc. and other companies that already have rolled out mobile-payment technologies,” Sarah Nassauer reports for The Wall Street Journal. “The retail behemoth is adding a feature to its existing mobile app so consumers can pay at the register with any payment information stored in their Walmart.com account, including gift cards, debit cards or credit cards. The retailer plans to release the payment capability to its 4,600 U.S. stores in the first half of next year, company executives said on Wednesday.”
“Daniel Eckert, Wal-Mart’s head of services for the U.S., said the retailer decided to build its own payment system because the other options either only work on particular smartphones or only allow users to pay with a select group of credit or debit cards,” Nassauer reports. “About 75% of Wal-Mart shoppers own a smartphone, he said.”
MacDailyNews Take: Wal-Mart = Android. Just sayin’.
Nassauer reports, “With the new system called Walmart Pay, shoppers use Wal-Mart’s app and camera feature to scan a QR code at the register which then connects to the payment cards on file in their Walmart.com accounts.”
MacDailyNews Take: Kludgy, basic, and antiquated. Hey, it’s perfect for Wal-Mart!
“Wal-Mart’s offering marks a definitive move away from the Merchant Customer Exchange, or MCX, a band of retailers and restaurants that joined together in 2012,” Nassauer reports. “Mr. Eckert said the retailer remains committed to MCX and the CurrentC app, and said in the future, Wal-Mart’s app could integrate other mobile payment systems like CurrentC and Apple Pay as a form of payment as it does now with credit cards.”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Eventually, Walfart will add Apple Pay capability, if they ever want to, you know, cater to consumers with disposable income and the proven will to spend it, as any smart retailer obviously should.
Until then, iPhone and iPad users can at least use Apple Pay in Target’s app, which is good since Target is Wal-Mart for Apple users anyway (better merchandise, much cleaner stores with better layouts, significantly less fat on display, far fewer body odors, way more teeth, etc.). Target should wise up and recognize this opportunity by turning on Apple Pay capability immediately.
Apple Pay is accepted in over a million stores. And counting.
Where to use Apple Pay apple.com/apple-pay/where-to-use-apple-pay/