Why Walmart still doesn't support Apple Pay(9to5mac.com)
18 pointsby CharlesW3 hours ago7 comments
  • jameskilton2 hours ago
    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.

    • gdullian hour ago
      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.
    • bryanlarsenan hour ago
      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.
    • ehhthingan hour ago
      Walmart does not require you to link a bank account for any of these schemes.
  • jmann999992 hours ago
    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.

    • cdurth35 minutes ago
      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.
    • ecshaferan hour ago
      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).
    • Forge362 hours ago
      Menards has done this since at least 2012
  • ehhthingan hour ago
    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.
    • brianwawokan hour ago
      Eh, I expect anything where I don’t hand over my card is Apple Pay.
  • dfajgljsldkjagan hour ago
    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.
  • gnabgib3 hours ago
    While the previous submission didn't get many upvotes (6) the comments (3) are interesting: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46674968
  • k3102 hours ago
    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.

  • McDownloads2 hours ago
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