Those of you longtime Irreal readers who have been following my quest for living a digital life know that I long ago gave up shopping at Walmart. One reason for that is that Covid 19 taught us that Amazon would deliver the same products to our door for pretty much the same price. The other reason, though, is that Walmart stubbornly refused to accept Apple Pay.
Walmart told all sorts of stories—none of them true—for why that was. They continued, for example, to blame contractual obligations to CurrentC long after that benighted organization met its well deserved demise. There were other stories but the truth was always the same: Walmart wanted to harvest customer data, which they couldn’t do with Apple Pay, so they insisted that customers wanting contactless checkout scan a QR code to pay. We here at the Irreal Bunker are famously old and grumpy but the QR code thing didn’t go over well with anyone.
Now, finally, Walmart has capitulated and agreed to accept Apple Pay. Read their announcement. All the reasons they give for accepting tap-to-pay applied 12 years ago just as well as today but Walmart still had hopes of getting their hands on that sweet, sweet data and refused to accept the inevitable.
Walmart will be rolling out the change gradually. If you’ve been waiting for Walmart to accept Apple Pay and are wondering when it will be available in your state, here’s the schedule.
I remember sort of enjoying browsing around Walmart before I gave it up for Amazon but at this point—even with Apple Pay—I’m not sure I’ll go back. Walmart, of course, won’t notice, but losing customers one at a time is the price you pay for ignoring customer preferences for years.
Thanks to John Gruber at Daring Fireball for the pointer.