Apple Pay gains traction where it counts

“Four years after introducing Apple Pay, the company is going neighborhood by neighborhood trying to get U.S. retailers and consumers to use the service—no easy task,” Olga Kharif reports for Bloomberg. “While as many as one in three households with credit cards tap the app at least twice a month in the U.K., the system is used that often by only 14 percent of those households in the U.S., according to Crone Consulting LLC.”
“But now Apple Pay appears to be gaining customers after years of disappointing fits and starts. Thanks to more installed equipment in stores and a new feature called Apple Pay Cash, the program is making gains in areas from mobile apps to physical stores,” Kharif reports. “Rolled out in December, Apple Pay Cash is a peer-to-peer payment feature, like PayPal Holdings Inc.’s better-known Venmo, which lets people send money to each other via iMessage, and it already has millions of users, Apple said. The service is driving people to use other Apple Pay features as well.”
“What’s more, Apple Pay’s biggest obstacle — shortage of merchant acceptance of the service — is fading. By year’s end, 60 percent of U.S. merchants will have the equipment to accept payment via a tap from an iPhone (on par with the U.K. and Canada)—up from 3 percent four years ago, according to Apple,” Kharif reports. “Still, Apple’s biggest opportunity in the U.S. may be to slice into PayPal’s digital turf. That’s where shopping is moving: The number of mobile app transactions using Apple Pay is growing much faster than in-store commerce.”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Apple should have begun Apple Pay by incentivizing its use to get people used to using it. It would have spread much more rapidly. Lately, they’ve been working with partners to offer some incentives, but, with the money they have at their disposal, Apple could have made, and still could make, a much bigger splash.
Apple, give us a reason to use Apple Pay beyond looking like tech dorks in front of the line at the register. What’s the incentive to use Apple Pay? There is none besides looking like a flaming nerd. As if Apple doesn’t have any money. That, inexplicably, is how they approach Apple Pay. Hello, Tim? Eddy? Talk to some people who actually go to stores and shop for things, please.
Incentivize its use! Give Apple Pay users a percentage of every dollar spent via Apple Pay to spend at Apple Stores. Something. Anything! Get people used to using it first. Sheesh. It’s really not that difficult. It really isn’t. — MacDailyNews, August 6, 2015
SEE ALSO:
Apple debuts ‘Summertime savings with Apple Pay’ with exclusive offers thru August 1st – July 20, 2018
Why Americans aren’t using their phones to make payments in stores – May 25, 2018
We spent around $20 billion using Apple Pay in 2016 – April 5, 2017
Apple Pay promised to make plastic obsolete, but wary shoppers and confused clerks hinder adoption – April 5, 2017
Retail survey: Apple Pay now being accepted at more retailers than any other mobile payments service – February 22, 2017