Does Walmart Take Apple Pay In 2024

It’s very likely that you have a Walmart store within five miles from your home as there are over 4,743 Walmart stores spread across the country with many customers choosing to shop there due to its low prices, and a variety of convenient services provided by the store. With 55% out of the 96% of Americans that use cell phones being iPhone users, many of these users definitely select Apple Pay as their most preferred payment method at most stores across the country. But does Walmart take Apple Pay like other stores that’d rather go with the statistics to provide convenience for their customers?

Unfortunately, Walmart isn’t one of those stores that take Apple Pay as a payment method in their stores and online. Instead, they provided an alternative payment method known as Walmart Pay where iPhone users can still pay using their iPhones whenever they make purchases at the store.

You can still make payments using some other payment methods like MasterCard, Visa, PayPal, Cash, etc. In this article, I’ll explain the reasons why Walmart doesn’t accept Apple Pay and how to use its alternative invented by the store— Walmart Pay.

Does Walmart Take Apple Pay?

Walmart doesn’t take Apple Pay presently whether you’re performing an in-store transaction or an online transaction. This means if you’re an iPhone user or any other Apple device user, you cannot make payments for your purchase using Apple Pay as the payment method is disallowed by Walmart.

If you’re a fan of the contactless payment feature, you won’t be able to use this feature to make your payments as Apple Pay is disallowed to be used at the stores. Hence, both online and offline, you cannot use Apple Pay to finish your purchase.

Does Walmart take Apple Pay in-store?

No, Walmart doesn’t take Apple pay at its stores. This means that you cannot perform contactless payment at the self-checkout counter or the register. Walmart also doesn’t take any other contactless payment method like Google Pay and Samsung Pay.

This is because of the store’s own digital payment system, Walmart Pay which uses QR codes for its contactless transaction instead of NFC as used by other payment systems like Apple Pay, Google Pay, and Samsung Pay.

Due to this, a lot of iPhone users are deprived of the ability to use Apple Pay to make payments while they make purchases in Walmart.

Walmart may also not be accepting Apple Pay at their stores or online any time soon as Walmart’s spokesperson, Erin Hulliberher hints in an interview that Walmart pay is the only exclusive form of mobile payment accepted at Walmart and that the store has no plans to change that anytime soon.

This means that probably until Walmart pay is discontinued, Walmart may not be integrating Apple Pay as a method of payment in their stores anytime soon.

Why Walmart Doesn’t Take Apple Pay?

Although Apple Pay is a very convenient way to make payments while making purchases or checking out at a store for iOS device users, there are reasons why Walmart did not integrate Apple Pay as one of its numerous payment systems. Here are the reasons:

Walmart Pay

Due to the invention of its own mobile payment wallet, this is the major reason why Walmart doesn’t accept Apple Pay. This reason is that Walmart will want to promote its own digital wallet instead of those that have similar features as its mobile wallet and to cut the competition between its wallet and other digital wallets, Walmart disallowed the use of Apple Pay.

This move is supposed to encourage customers to use Walmart’s payment wallet instead of other digital wallets with the contactless transaction feature. With this wallet, you can still perform contactless transactions as the wallet uses QR codes to complete payment processes instead of NFC like Apple Pay and other digital wallets use.

Consumer Data:

Another major reason why Walmart doesn’t accept Apple Pay is that with Apple Pay, Walmart won’t be able to capture valuable consumer data. And for a company that cares about results and likes to serve its customers better, there’s a need to capture consumer data for consumer research purposes to be able to serve the customers better.

But with Walmart pay, Walmart has the access to exclusive Walmart consumers’ data. This can help the store bump up its marketing strategy. For instance, Walmart can use the data to determine shoppers’ buying habits and target them with personalized ads and recommendations based on customers’ previous purchases.

QR Codes Over NFC

Apple Pay makes use of NFC technology for its contactless payment feature. This is not the same for Walmart hence why Walmart had to create its own system that uses QR codes instead of NFC to process its contactless payments. The choice of technology used for contactless payment was determined by Walmart as they seem to have a particular reason why they’ll prefer QR Codes technology over NFC and since they were trying to create a solution similar to Apple Pay and co without copying their technology, they went for QR codes.

This means that Walmart doesn’t accept all NFC-tech-driven apps like Apple Pay, Samsung Pay, and Google Pay. Instead, they only support Walmart Pay with its QR code technology.

Minimal Processing Fee:

Instead of paying third-party digital wallets the processing fee for transactions made by customers, Walmart instead developed its own wallet to avoid this. Now the processing fee is collected by Walmart itself to protect its margins.

How To Use Apple Pay At Walmart- Hack!

Although Apple Pay can’t be used at Walmart stores both online and offline, there’s a hack to this. While researching for this topic, I came across this hack and decided to share it as it may be useful to most iPhone users who can’t do without making payments with Apple Pay, so here you go. Here’s how to use Apple Pay at Walmart:

Step 1: Download The Ibotta App

You can download this application from your App Store.

Step 2: Select The Item You Want To Buy From Walmart

On the ibotta app, go through the items and stores available and choose which item you’d like to buy from Walmart.

Step 3: Select Apple Pay As Your Preferred Payment Method

When you’re checking out in the store, select Apple Pay as your preferred method of payment and show the QR code on the app to the cashier. You’ll get an instant 2% cashback while also getting to make your payments with Apple Pay.

If you’re unfamiliar with ibotta, ibotta is a cashback app that gives users 2% cash back on every purchase made. This app only works for certain stores and some particular items.

How to use Walmart Pay on your iPhone?

Just like Apple Pay, with Walmart pay, you can easily store your credit card, debit card, or even your gift cards. The app lets you make your payments quickly and conveniently using your iPhone. Here’s how to use Walmart Pay on your iPhone:

Step 1: Download The Walmart App

You can download the Walmart app from your AppStore.

Step 2: Log In Or Create An Account

If you already have a Walmart account before, you can log in and begin using the app. But if you don’t, create an account by following all the on-screen instructions to help you create an account squarely.

Step 3: Tap Services And Choose Walmart Pay

Amongst the services provided by Walmart is Walmart Pay. Choose Walmart Pay since that’s the service you would be performing.

Step 4: Add Your Payment Card

You can add a debit card, credit card, or gift card. After setting this up you can go ahead to make payments at the store or online.

Step 5: Scan Your Items At The Self-Checkout Counter Or Cash Register

At the store, head to the checkout lane and scan your items at the cash register or self-checkout counter.

Step 6: Scan The QR Code

After scanning your items, the cashier or the machine will display to you a QR code. Open your Walmart application and tap Walmart Pay to scan the QR code.

Step 7: Complete The Transaction

After scanning, you’ll hear a chime signaling the confirmation that the transaction has been successfully processed.

After payment, you can leave instead of waiting for a receipt as Walmart doesn’t use a paper receipt instead, it sends its customers an e-receipt to their devices.

Other Payment Methods Accepted At Walmart

As one of the largest store companies in the US, Walmart definitely provides a wide variety of payment options for checking out whenever you make purchases at the store. You can make use of the major cards for your payments. The cards include Credit Cards, Debit Cards, Gift Cards, Visa, MasterCard, American Express, and Discover.

You can also make your payments using Walmart’s capital one Walmart Credit Cards.

If you’d rather use a third-party payment method, you can use PayPal, and Affirm depending on your choice. You can also make your payments using gift cards. The gift cards may include- Visa, Walmart, or American Express Gift cards.

If you’re an Android user who’d like to use your favorite contactless payment methods like Google Pay or Samsung Pay, Walmart doesn’t allow the use of these payment methods as they’re also competitors with Walmart Pay.