Is Apple Pay a failure?!!

[woodyman100]

I love the concept of Apple/Android/Samsung etc, but in reality it's turning out to be a big juicy turkey in my opinion.
So few stores use it for it to be practical.
Academy is about the only one I use it with and that's only because it's cool to do it.
The few Walgreens that I have run it to that do it, some of the terminals don't work properly.
I use my wallet for gas station reward programs now
Any one ales feel similar?

[GalaxyStars]

Yes and no.

The rollout of such tech? Yes, but lets be honest, retailers had to be basically forced by the government to roll out Chip & Pin inserts. They were dragging their feet before it became a requirement.

The chance that they would care about an Apple, Samsung payment scanner method is not very likely.
Anything that effects their bottom line, even if it could make their customers shopping easier, is null and void.

[CatOfSpades]

I pretty much only use Apple Pay at Panera, Firehouse Subs, and reloading my Starbucks gold card. I may have used it for a few online purchases, but I don't see that often enough to remember which merchants I've used it at. 

I think anything that requires the merchant to buy new tech is a hard sell if it isn't necessary, and Apple Pay & Android Pay, etc, are not necessary. I have still only seen a few places that have chip terminals, and that IS a requirement. Maybe if Apple could have provided some kind of Add-On for free? I work retail (we don't have it), and it is a huge pain to get set up with new tech. We're looking to get up chip system up by December, and we're not looking to get set up with digital payments at all. I love the thought of it though. 

[Callandra]

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@GalaxyStars wrote:
Yes and no.

The rollout of such tech? Yes, but lets be honest, retailers had to be basically forced by the government to roll out Chip & Pin inserts. They were dragging their feet before it became a requirement.

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Even then Chip readers still aren't eveywhere yet. I think I swipe more than insert my card. I know they don't work at Publix (at least the ones in my area) and I still swipe at all my favorite clothing store (Express, American Eagle, Bath and Body Works, etc.). 

[Aarvard]

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@woodyman100 wrote:
I love the concept of Apple/Android/Samsung etc, but in reality it's turning out to be a big juicy turkey in my opinion.
So few stores use it for it to be practical.
Academy is about the only one I use it with and that's only because it's cool to do it.
The few Walgreens that I have run it to that do it, some of the terminals don't work properly.
I use my wallet for gas station reward programs now
Any one ales feel similar?

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For me, Apple sucks and Samsung Pay rocks. Thanks to Samsung Pay I no longer need to stuff my wallets with 10 different cards, and it works most of the time, not like Apple Pay or Android Pay.

[Anonymous]

i love apple pay...i believe is the future

[Anonymous]

What a small world, downloaded Samsung Pay today because I wanted to try it and I was waiting for another round of gift cards if your a first time user. It was easy added my Freedom, scanned it at Aldi today and no problem.

As soon as I paid it even downloaded my $20 giftcard, i will have to try more places.

[Kevin86475391]

I'm not opposed to it but I also just don't really care about it. A few times I've forgotten my wallet but had my phone and yeah, it would have been nice if I could have paid that way, but the level of acceptance just isn't there.

I already get frustrated with the whole chip & pin vs swiping gray area we're in now. Occasionally I correctly guess which method the merchant takes, but nowadays half the time I try to swipe they're saying, 'no, we're doing the chip now' and half the time I go to insert my card for chip they're saying, "we're still doing swipe." I honestly don't really care which one I do but it's pretty irritating guessing the wrong method and having to start over. All the terminals look like they're setup for either, so you can't really tell by looking which one's active for a given merchant. Anyway, the point is I can only imagine how irritated I'd be if I kept trying to use Apple Pay (or Android/Samsung, etc) and was told they don't take it over and over.

I think the problem is clearly one of adoption rather than technological hurdles or the premise itself being bad. If we could just wake up tomorrow and literally every merchant had the ability to take Apple Pay (et al) and literally every consumer was likewise setup to do it with their phones, then it would be great. However as long as we're waiting on people to gradually get it and merchants to gradually support it, it's going to be an incredibly slow process - reinforced by the fact that the consumer will say, 'why should I set this up when 90% of merchants don't take it?' and merchants will way, 'why should I upgrade to this capability when 90% of customers don't use it?'

It sort of reminds me of cell phone adoption rates. Nowadays pretty much everyone has a cell phone, but there was a good 5-10 year period where people were just gradually getting them and maybe by a given point most college students and business professionals had them, but a random stay-at-home parent, construction worker, retiree, or school teacher did not. 

Apple Pay seems like the type of thing to me that realistically everyone should expect to take a good 10 years to fully get implemented on a wide scale.

[kdm31091]

The problem is that people only change their behavior if there is a significant time saving or convenience reason to do so. Realistically, swiping/inserting a card is no big deal, and you do it without even thinking about it. Taking out your phone and selecting a card isn't really necessarily a big saving in time or convenience, so what's the point? Basically all it's got going for it is novelty and the security angle, but until/unless every merchant takes Apple Pay you'd still be carrying the physical cards for backup anyway. So to me, it's more or less pointless. I haven't felt the desire to use it.

It's hard to judge it as a failure though. IMO it will be many years before it is widespread. Sure, eventually, physical credit cards may disappear but there are still people writing paper checks and mailing them out to pay bills. So I don't see cards disappearing anytime in the foreseeable future. So is it a "failure" no, but is it going to suddenly be the mainstream payment method? I doubt it, not for a long time if ever.

[Anonymous]

I think so yes.  I never got on board with Apple pay or Google Wallet which is now Android pay because it just seems like a hassle to try and remember when you're out shopping and eating and whatever what store takes NFC. However on Friday I got a new phone which has Samsung pay and I've been using it all weekend. I absolutely love it.  I even got a bunch of reward cards like CVS Walgreens Stop & Shop that I never would get before because I hate toting them around. I had to get the phone because my son cracked the screen on his and I gave him mine.  Now I'm secretly happy that happened all because of this Samsung pay. Hahaha