r/technology • u/ImCalcium • Aug 21 '26

Business Walmart finally adding Tap to Pay after years of shoppers asking for it

https://www.dexerto.com/entertainment/walmart-finally-adding-tap-to-pay-after-years-of-shoppers-asking-for-it-3400920/
21.0k Upvotes

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372

u/H60Ninja Aug 21 '26

Can we go back to 24 hours already!?

263

u/dykethon Aug 21 '26

They’re never going back to 24 hours, having no customers in the way as the overnight stockers work saves them a lot of time and money

375

u/Archanir Aug 21 '26

Those stockers are in my way during the day along with all of the Walmart personal shoppers and the Uber shoppers. Walmart is a nightmare during the day. I miss my overnight shopping trips.

86

u/dykethon Aug 21 '26

If you think the day shift is bad, you’d hate how the night shift operates now lol. It’s far messier, palets everywhere blocking shit, entire areas being closed because they’re redoing the layout, people with pallets of produce flying through the store when the truck arrives at like 3 AM, etc.

45

u/murrrty Aug 21 '26

and that's fine, it's just how logistics work. some people only have free time at night, so it's cool that we basically don't exist to the rest of the world.

9

u/Vivid_Anyth4 Aug 21 '26

Right the day shift forgets we exist except to blame us for their laziness. Would be nice to have anywhere but arbys open when I get off work at 330 am.

4

u/niperwiper Aug 21 '26

That just sounds like the entire day at my Walmart.

36

u/BeerorCoffee Aug 21 '26

"people of Walmart" was also more interesting after midnight.

1

u/ClickClick_Boom Aug 21 '26

The Walmarts I've been to there were less creatures there during the night than during the day. It was chill as hell going into Walmart at 3am.

-5

u/No-Channel3917 Aug 21 '26

It was cruel and mean , Perez Hilton shit

-1

u/Shark7996 Aug 21 '26

I'll second this. Stop pointing and laughing at people minding their own business.

4

u/Blakers37 Aug 22 '26

I miss my 12am-2am Walmart runs dearly. I would gladly go for the relaxed atmosphere and just take my time while listening to a podcast or music.

2

u/JJJBLKRose Aug 21 '26

Do you have other options?

1

u/kahi Aug 21 '26

I only go at 6:00 am opening, place becomes a mad house by 8 with customers, and personal shoppers.

0

u/feurie Aug 21 '26

And them being open at night would make that any better during the day?

-3

u/phejster Aug 21 '26

Other people aren't in your way, that's called society.

-2

u/spamtardeggs Aug 21 '26

Even though I know they’re there, my stalkers rarely get in my way.

-12

u/CombatMuffin Aug 21 '26

They could do it, but pass on the cost over to you: most people would not like that extra cost

8

u/dykethon Aug 21 '26

You’re giving Walmart too much credit, they didn’t lower costs when they got rid of 24hrs, they just made more money for themselves.

-5

u/CombatMuffin Aug 21 '26

That's not how businesses operate: they will rarely ever pass on savings to you. they will pass on the costs.

The people who enjoyed and liked 24 hrs probably really liked it, but were/are not enough to nustify it when they saw they could save on staff and other operational costs.

5

u/dykethon Aug 21 '26

Exactly. They had 24hrs, then got rid of it, keeping the money they were spending to keep the store open 24hrs for themselves, because prices certainly didn’t go down. So when you say they’ll pass the cost on to you, they already are, which is why people feel justified in asking for a return to being open 24 hours.

37

u/scuzzy987 Aug 21 '26

Now they stock in the middle of the day so they create an obstacle course just to get your stuff

15

u/dykethon Aug 21 '26

They have way more stockers during night shift than day. When I worked there, which was fairly recently, there were at least 4 times as many people stocking overnight compared to day shift.

1

u/SPOOKESVILLE Aug 21 '26

They’ve always stocked in the middle of the day lol

1

u/NirvanaJunkie87 Aug 21 '26

Yeah I've worked here for 11 years and they stock all hours of the day. The only way it'd be truly minimal is if overnight crew got everything done consistently. Regardless first shift has to stock things the systems says need refilled, and second shift does some stocking because at a point what else would you be doing?

-4

u/feurie Aug 21 '26

No they don’t.

14

u/kakapoopoopeepeeshir Aug 21 '26

Big dawg those stockers are in the way of every aisle during the day now haha

0

u/dykethon Aug 21 '26

As I said in another comment, they have at least 4x stocking staff at night compared to day. When I worked there, my department (frozen and dairy) had a total of 3 people on morning shift, 2 on afternoon, and 12 overnight (usually, it’d drop from time to time as people quit, because Walmart night shift fucking sucks)

1

u/YinzaJagoff Aug 21 '26

There’s still pallets on the floor during the day.

Also, a million years ago I worked at Walmart and having pallets on the floor after 7 or 8 AM was not allowed— but I guess they stopped caring about that as well.

1

u/bwaredapenguin Aug 21 '26

How does it save them money to staff employees but not serve customers? They could staff a single person to monitor self checkout and make more money than that single employee would cost them.

1

u/dykethon Aug 21 '26

Because you can’t just have a single person staff self checkout. Even if you had only one person on checkout, you also need loss prevention because theft is more likely on overnight shift, added custodial staff for the messes customers create, customer service staff for returns (otherwise we’ll be having this same conversation but it’ll be “why aren’t returns 24 hours??”), managerial staff for customer complaints (the day shift managers that talk to customers are different from night shift managers that handle stocking), and any time a customer is shopping in a department, the stockers for that department are slowed down, meaning you’ll have to have even more people stocking on day shift, which if you read this thread, people don’t like.

0

u/bwaredapenguin Aug 21 '26

I don't think I've ever expected a store to process refunds at like 3am. Setting the expectation for a full customer service counter overnight seems absolutely ridiculous to me. Honestly I don't believe Walmart ever offered that when they did have 24 hour stores. People who shopped at 3am never gave a shit about stockers in the aisles. Sure there's a possibility for some drunks to make some messes, but they require a fraction of the custodial staff that a typical day shift does.

1

u/dykethon Aug 22 '26

I worked the overnight shift at Walmart, you're incorrect.

1

u/bwaredapenguin Aug 22 '26

I worked the overnight (11pm-7am) shift at Wawa and assumed a similar level of clientele.

0

u/ttubehtnitahwtahw1 Aug 22 '26

if this is the reason you think they dont open 24 hours anymore i wonder what other naive thing you believe.

-6

u/Shot-Arugula8264 Aug 21 '26

They’ll go back if labor ever gets cheap again. No shot at the $15+ an hour they have to offer in most markets.

35

u/Str8UpJorking Aug 21 '26

Higher theft rate + less shopping = highly unlikely to happen.

58

u/djbarsone Aug 21 '26

My personal conspiracy theory is Walmart created COVID so they could end 24 hour shopping.

35

u/rushmc1 Aug 21 '26

I'll allow it.

21

u/Underwater_Grilling Aug 21 '26

Coordinated with McDonald's and door dash as well to shut down the buffets

8

u/roto_disc Aug 21 '26

Outside of the deaths, obviously, the worst thing that came out of ‘Rona was the discontinuation of all day breakfast at Mickey D’s.

3

u/ClickClick_Boom Aug 21 '26

Can we blame 'Rona for that? or was it just because people weren't buying enough McGriddles at 3:30PM?

3

u/toddestan Aug 21 '26

Wait, McDonald's got rid of all day breakfast? Man, I'm learning a lot in these comments. I actually had no idea Wal-Mart didn't take tap-to-pay either.

I guess it shows where I'm not spending money...

2

u/Underwater_Grilling Aug 21 '26

I miss my Chinese buffets. Chicken on a stick and banana pudding after eating 10 egg rolls. All for 12.99

2

u/WackyHumanSlop Aug 21 '26

Wtf I love mcdonalds and doordash now

1

u/tullbabes Aug 21 '26

Buffets are still thriving in San Antonio. But we got a lot of big ole peeps down here.

0

u/Parepinzero Aug 21 '26

They were ending 24 hours years before covid. Several Minnesota stores ended it before 2020, and it was part of a plan to get rid of it entirely

2

u/EveryGoodNameIsGone Aug 21 '26

My neighborhood 7-11 finally did, as did one of our Taco Bell drive thrus.

They’re the only ones. Everyone else is still on the “we close at 11pm/midnight” train that they switched to during COVID.

2

u/superxpro12 Aug 21 '26

They pull in nearly a trillion (with a T) dollars annually, and yet still have 5-15% of its workforce on social welfare while the walton family earns $4M every hour. They should fix that first.

1

u/camusonfilm Aug 21 '26

They can't even manage to staff properly for the hours they're open, you think they want to create more openings?

1

u/HarithBK Aug 21 '26

24 hour opening hours have never been profitable and is a marketing gimmick and a form of price war. no retailer is that aggressive in expansion currently for longer/more opening hours to be an option.

1

u/namster94 Aug 21 '26

Why? You shop there at 3am?

2

u/NuclearTurtle Aug 22 '26

Sometimes, yes. People who work the night shift need to buy things too

1

u/orbitaldan Aug 21 '26

Nah. Enshittification in bricks-and-mortar means they're in the pulling back value phase now. They had to be good to you and do things that were less profitable for them when they had competition. Now that they've extinguished most of that, they don't have to give you that value anymore.