The article misses the other reason that Walmart has invested in multiple attempts at electronic payments: not paying merchant fees to Visa and Mastercard. That's why their system requires you hooking up to your bank account directly.
All of Walmart's attempts at this have been focused on making Walmart's bottom line better, which is why every one of them has failed, whereas Apple Pay is making my payment experience better, and why I use it all the time.
They're being too greedy. Cut out the middle man and give most of the benefit to the consumer. 3% cash back or better, and you'll sizable sign up. No profit now, but now you've got control of the situation, which is huge, and gives you more opportunities for the future. You've also got leverage for your negotiations with the merchant card banks.
>The article misses the other reason that Walmart has invested in multiple attempts at electronic payments: not paying merchant fees to Visa and Mastercard. That's why their system requires you hooking up to your bank account directly.
Was going to reply this - I have Walmart Pay and it's my credit card.
I'm supremely annoyed because Walmart Pay still rather sucks. I have to scan a QR code which opens the app, then approve it from there. It's not simple like Apple Pay where I just tap my phone. But after hearing tons of stories of issues with people getting compromised by the terminals, I sucked it up and just did it, since their terminals don't support tap CCs.
It sounds like the Walmart approach has two fewer middlemen, which sounds nice to me. Walmart's interests are aligned with ours here. Whatever profit they have to give up as payment overhead will be passed along to us as higher prices.
I think one interesting thing that the article does mention is that Walmart does accept Apple Pay and contactless payments in Canada. I suspect this is because Canadians pretty much expect contactless to be accepted anywhere they shop, compared to in America where there are still many places (restaurants mostly) that have limited support for it.
I don’t see many places without contactless support anymore. Most times I get told they don’t support contactless, they actually do but are simply unaware of it. PCI requires businesses to use modern card readers, and most new card readers take contactless payments.
I’ve noticed a recent change in Walmart Scan & Go (Walmart Pay) that really illustrates how far their purchase tracking goes. If you’ve set up Walmart Pay with a credit card, and you later use that same physical card in-store, Walmart now appears to associate those transactions with your account as well.
I’m fairly confident of this because the app has started showing me in-store purchases that were not made using Walmart Pay. It suggests they’re linking transactions at the card-number level, not just through the app.
I suspect they may also be tying in-store purchases to your profile if you’ve ever placed an online order, though that part is speculation.
Yes they 100% associate the card number with your account if it's on file. I have never used Walmart pay and use my physical card only.
The strange thing I've noticed is that there is a failure rate of probably 20% where it doesn't associate me.
I do not use the app or scan and go. But I have a walmart account, and if I use my credit card at walmart all of those purchases show up on my online account. My email is of course intimately tied to my credit card (I am not in payments, so I am not sure where that happens, its not surprising but its there).
That’s really interesting. I always thought grocers probably tied loyalty cards and credit card hashes but it’s interesting that it’s been in home improvement that long.
I didn't get that far online. As soon as they said that I needed to create an account to buy something and that it gave them the right to spam me, I closed the window.
Now, they may have later said that Californians have a right to "no spam" (or not) but I really don't care at this point.
I find it so annoying that they disable the NFC readers on their terminals just to force people to scan a QR code. It makes the whole checkout process feel completely outdated compared to every other store.
To me the annoying part isn't that they don't accept Apple Pay (or any phone-app pay except their own). I don't have any Apple devices and I don't use Google Pay (or anyone else's phone-app pay). While TFA is correct that Apple Pay (or Google/Samsung/whatever pay) doesn't cost WalMart more than a physical credit card - TFA doesn't mention a highly relevant detail: a phone-app payment company can act as the 'issuing bank' and make a tiny fraction of a percent more (like ~0.3%) for being the clearinghouse. Not all phone-pay apps set up as an issuing bank as there's some overhead but it's more than worth it if you're the world's largest retailer. Note: this fee is not the same as the 2-3% "merchant fee". The clearinghouse fee is much smaller and never goes back to the merchant - unless the merchant IS is the phone-app company. I think WalMart figures "If anyone is 'playing bank' and making even a tiny rake in our store, it should be us."
The collateral damage is that, as a result, WalMart stopped taking plain old plastic credit card tap-to-pay which I prefer to use because it's faster, more secure and far more reliable than 'swipe card' or 'insert card chip' (because WalMart's physical readers are often flaky on self-checkout stations due to their high volume usage).
I suspect the main reason WalMart attaches a metal plate over the contactless area on their payment terminals which blocks ALL forms of tap-to-pay is simply that credit card tap-to-pay appears the same as phone-app tap-to-pay (because both are 'contactless') and one type of tap-to-pay working while the another type doesn't "would confuse customers". Which is a dumb reason to disallow a faster, more reliable form of payment that some people would like to use. It's not a money thing because to WalMart a credit card tap-to-pay is exactly the same as a swipe or chip insert of the same card, whereas a phone-app tap-to-pay isn't the same - even if the user settles the phone app bill using the same physical credit card.
The yellow bracket is intended to prevent the installation of skimmers. Unfortunately, the design isn't compatible with all of the fixtures they're applied to, and are often enough just not installed correctly... but that's what that part is sold as.
The article misses the other reason that Walmart has invested in multiple attempts at electronic payments: not paying merchant fees to Visa and Mastercard. That's why their system requires you hooking up to your bank account directly.
All of Walmart's attempts at this have been focused on making Walmart's bottom line better, which is why every one of them has failed, whereas Apple Pay is making my payment experience better, and why I use it all the time.
They're being too greedy. Cut out the middle man and give most of the benefit to the consumer. 3% cash back or better, and you'll sizable sign up. No profit now, but now you've got control of the situation, which is huge, and gives you more opportunities for the future. You've also got leverage for your negotiations with the merchant card banks.
Exactly. It needs to be a recurring benefit to me. Target Card is one of the few that got me.
>The article misses the other reason that Walmart has invested in multiple attempts at electronic payments: not paying merchant fees to Visa and Mastercard. That's why their system requires you hooking up to your bank account directly.
But you can add credit cards as well?
https://www.walmart.com/cp/walmart-pay/3205993
Was going to reply this - I have Walmart Pay and it's my credit card.
I'm supremely annoyed because Walmart Pay still rather sucks. I have to scan a QR code which opens the app, then approve it from there. It's not simple like Apple Pay where I just tap my phone. But after hearing tons of stories of issues with people getting compromised by the terminals, I sucked it up and just did it, since their terminals don't support tap CCs.
Walmart does not require you to link a bank account for any of these schemes.
It sounds like the Walmart approach has two fewer middlemen, which sounds nice to me. Walmart's interests are aligned with ours here. Whatever profit they have to give up as payment overhead will be passed along to us as higher prices.
So if you want to pay electronically you have to install their app? That is a pretty ballsy move not many stores can get away with that.
No, they still have credit card terminals. It's only that they don't support contactless.
I think one interesting thing that the article does mention is that Walmart does accept Apple Pay and contactless payments in Canada. I suspect this is because Canadians pretty much expect contactless to be accepted anywhere they shop, compared to in America where there are still many places (restaurants mostly) that have limited support for it.
I don’t see many places without contactless support anymore. Most times I get told they don’t support contactless, they actually do but are simply unaware of it. PCI requires businesses to use modern card readers, and most new card readers take contactless payments.
Eh, I expect anything where I don’t hand over my card is Apple Pay.
I’ve noticed a recent change in Walmart Scan & Go (Walmart Pay) that really illustrates how far their purchase tracking goes. If you’ve set up Walmart Pay with a credit card, and you later use that same physical card in-store, Walmart now appears to associate those transactions with your account as well.
I’m fairly confident of this because the app has started showing me in-store purchases that were not made using Walmart Pay. It suggests they’re linking transactions at the card-number level, not just through the app.
I suspect they may also be tying in-store purchases to your profile if you’ve ever placed an online order, though that part is speculation.
Yes they 100% associate the card number with your account if it's on file. I have never used Walmart pay and use my physical card only. The strange thing I've noticed is that there is a failure rate of probably 20% where it doesn't associate me.
I do not use the app or scan and go. But I have a walmart account, and if I use my credit card at walmart all of those purchases show up on my online account. My email is of course intimately tied to my credit card (I am not in payments, so I am not sure where that happens, its not surprising but its there).
Menards has done this since at least 2012
That’s really interesting. I always thought grocers probably tied loyalty cards and credit card hashes but it’s interesting that it’s been in home improvement that long.
While the previous submission didn't get many upvotes (6) the comments (3) are interesting: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46674968
[dead]
I didn't get that far online. As soon as they said that I needed to create an account to buy something and that it gave them the right to spam me, I closed the window.
Now, they may have later said that Californians have a right to "no spam" (or not) but I really don't care at this point.
I find it so annoying that they disable the NFC readers on their terminals just to force people to scan a QR code. It makes the whole checkout process feel completely outdated compared to every other store.
To me the annoying part isn't that they don't accept Apple Pay (or any phone-app pay except their own). I don't have any Apple devices and I don't use Google Pay (or anyone else's phone-app pay). While TFA is correct that Apple Pay (or Google/Samsung/whatever pay) doesn't cost WalMart more than a physical credit card - TFA doesn't mention a highly relevant detail: a phone-app payment company can act as the 'issuing bank' and make a tiny fraction of a percent more (like ~0.3%) for being the clearinghouse. Not all phone-pay apps set up as an issuing bank as there's some overhead but it's more than worth it if you're the world's largest retailer. Note: this fee is not the same as the 2-3% "merchant fee". The clearinghouse fee is much smaller and never goes back to the merchant - unless the merchant IS is the phone-app company. I think WalMart figures "If anyone is 'playing bank' and making even a tiny rake in our store, it should be us."
The collateral damage is that, as a result, WalMart stopped taking plain old plastic credit card tap-to-pay which I prefer to use because it's faster, more secure and far more reliable than 'swipe card' or 'insert card chip' (because WalMart's physical readers are often flaky on self-checkout stations due to their high volume usage).
I suspect the main reason WalMart attaches a metal plate over the contactless area on their payment terminals which blocks ALL forms of tap-to-pay is simply that credit card tap-to-pay appears the same as phone-app tap-to-pay (because both are 'contactless') and one type of tap-to-pay working while the another type doesn't "would confuse customers". Which is a dumb reason to disallow a faster, more reliable form of payment that some people would like to use. It's not a money thing because to WalMart a credit card tap-to-pay is exactly the same as a swipe or chip insert of the same card, whereas a phone-app tap-to-pay isn't the same - even if the user settles the phone app bill using the same physical credit card.
The yellow bracket is intended to prevent the installation of skimmers. Unfortunately, the design isn't compatible with all of the fixtures they're applied to, and are often enough just not installed correctly... but that's what that part is sold as.
Neither does Home Depot.
Home Depot does support Apple Pay and other standard forms of tap-to-pay now. (It’s possible that some areas are still in transition.)
Must have been within the past year. I forgot my wallet going there and was surprised I could not pay with my phone at their self checkout.
Yes, recent for my local stores — Q3 or very early Q4.
[dead]