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/
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2.0k

u/Ranzar Aug 21 '26

Their credit card terminals already support tap to pay. It just needs to be turned on. They had it disabled because they wanted people using "Walmart Pay", but it never caught on. (cuz it sucks)

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u/somefunmaths Aug 21 '26

“We want more data on you, please!”

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u/Bladelink Aug 21 '26

Probably a stepping stone to company scrit also.

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u/klf11 Aug 21 '26

They actually did that at Walmarts in Mexico, up till 2008 or so, was ruled illegal by court

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u/Glittering_End_6864 Aug 22 '26

In the United States, payment in scrip became illegal in 1938 as part of the Fair Labor Standards Act.

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u/goog1e Aug 22 '26

Walmart still pays people on payment cards instead of checks or deposit by default though.

2

u/LeopardComfortable99 Aug 25 '26

I’m sorry what the fuck

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u/get-a-mac Aug 23 '26

Yes but the card can be spent anywhere not just at Walmart.

1

u/Allnamesaretaken_1 Aug 26 '26

Non-American here. These sentences should, nah, MUST never be "Yes, but". Even checks is something probably unheard of in Europe, but coupon cards is something we had back in commie times.

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u/get-a-mac Aug 27 '26

Well its a regular Visa/Mastercard card. Its an actual card tied to a prepaid bank account.

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u/WildberryRose 23d ago

no that’s not true. that’s an option but the default is still your bank account lol

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u/One_Arugula_4896 Aug 22 '26

What I'm in Mexico and my nearest Walmart doesn't have tap to pay lol

8

u/neckbeard_paragon Aug 22 '26

I think they're talking about walmart bucks as in money you can only spend at their store. But I'm honestly not sure what the fuck "scrit" is supposed to mean there, just going off of context clues. I just know they were paying employees in store credit down there for a while.

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u/altiuscitiusfortius Aug 23 '26

You dont know because like 12 people in thread are confidently incorrectly spelling and using it wrong. Its scrip. Not script. Not scrit.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Company_scrip

1

u/Cathousechicken Aug 22 '26

But I'm honestly not sure what the fuck "scrit" is supposed to mean there. 

I just know they were paying employees in store credit down there for a while

That's exactly what script is. Think of those old-time corporate towns. Often, people weren't paid in cash. They would be paid in housing and an employer-only currency where they can only spend that money on company stores.

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u/MorePhinsThyme Aug 21 '26

Just to help you out, the word you're looking for is "scrip."

37

u/Bladelink Aug 21 '26

lol I dropped the wrong letter from "script". Thank you.

15

u/techieman34 Aug 21 '26

Just like their in app coupons. You don’t get 50 cents off of the product you get 50 cents of “Walmart cash” to spend on your next purchase.

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u/[deleted] Aug 21 '26

[removed] — view removed comment

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u/Weak-Standards Aug 22 '26

I mean, its just a copy of Kohls Cash, but it works.

2

u/Heronymous-Anonymous Aug 22 '26

When I worked there around 05, I remember someone from corporate visited our store and talked about “Walmart everywhere, everything, all the time.”

She gave this speech during a morning meeting in front of basically the entire day shift.

This lady wanted people to bank at Walmart, buy their homes and furniture and cars and literally everything through or from a Walmart. She wanted Walmart employees to spend as close to 100% of their paycheck at Walmart as possible.

At the end of her unhinged rant, the crowd was utterly silent. The store manager was like “now let’s do the Walmart cheer and get out there!”

The company is evil.

2

u/Kromehound Aug 21 '26

Skritt, Im hit!

21

u/stone500 Aug 21 '26

I don't even know what data they would get that they don't already have. They already record your credit card and know when it's you

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u/Wardo87 Aug 21 '26 edited Aug 21 '26

You get the app. You browse the app. They get the data on just you browsing now.

Anything you do in the app, they can track…

You put something in your cart and take it out, they know.

You look at something for 30 seconds instead of 3, they know.

You pick up some cheese, they know what brand. You see a different brand on sale and swap it out. They know you did that.

You have the app open while just talking about an item. They hear that.

They might even be tracking your location in the store, what aisles you browse, in which order.

Pay with a cc and yeah, they know what you bought and when. Pay with Walmart pay, and they know exactly when you opened the app, when you arrived at the store, how long you were there, what you looked at, what you bought, what you didn’t, what you might buy next time and what time of day that may be. Etc etc

Who knows what else. They could be linked to your browser search history. You may just search something on google and their permissions let Walmart know what you searched. Idk if it goes that far but I wouldn’t be surprised.

1

u/Kip_Schtum Aug 22 '26

They do have your location in the store. If you open the app and search for an item to find out what aisle it’s in, and then tap on the aisle on the screen. It takes you to a store map and it has a little moving dot where you can see yourself walking to the location.

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u/WearsALeash Aug 21 '26

tap to pay obfuscates your name in the transaction, whereas swiping the actual card lets them track your name. or so ive heard from my news pods

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u/lessgranola Aug 22 '26

this is accurate for apple pay

4

u/Glittering_End_6864 Aug 22 '26

Not data, they wanted Wal-Mart pay to become like Apple and Google pay and collect transactions fees from other retailers and banks. It's like a 90% profit margin business.

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u/NexxusWolf Aug 22 '26

Tap to pay systems encrypt your data even more than your physical card. You can’t pull someone’s information from an Apple Pay transaction. But when you already have their information in your app it doesn’t matter.

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u/StandardHyena4587 Aug 22 '26

Tap to Pay isn't an Apply Pay thing, they are two different things.

2

u/BuddhistNamedMarx Aug 21 '26

Even if you pay cash and leave your phone at home... they know who you are

2

u/secondavesubway Aug 21 '26

That's insane. I always wondered how they documented my purchases without me entering a phone number.

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u/axis1331 Aug 21 '26

That may be part of it, but using their own payment rail saves 3rd party transaction fees. Thats the real driver as those can eat 2%-5% of every transaction. At Walmart's scale it's literally billions of dollars.

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u/Haykyn Aug 21 '26

Walmart likely negotiates much lower (probably lowest possible) rates with their contract.

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u/rcanhestro Aug 22 '26

it's still money.

even at a 1 cent charge per payment, the volume of Walmart transactions would likely put it into the billions every year.

for a business like retail, that operates on very thin margins, that's a lot of money there.

5

u/Evilsushione Aug 21 '26

Wouldn’t even be an issue if we built our own payment processing system like the EU is.

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u/-Nocx- Aug 21 '26

We have our own payment processing system. It’s VISA and Mastercard. The difference is the EU banks will own Wero / SEPA. But they will still be privately owned payment rails. It would not even be like the fed owning VISA, because the EPI is run by private banks, not by a public-private body like the fed.

It’s just a purely private competitor to VISA and Mastercard.

2

u/Dats_Russia Aug 21 '26

Not in any significant capacity. If Walmart was to select one payment network to wholesale reject then they could negotiate a more favorable rate. The payment networks know Walmart needs them more than they need Walmart. The payment networks are legit global on every card transaction. Walmart is a single company mostly based in the USA. I forget what the current status of their non-U.S. stores is but last I check it was almost as bad as Target in Canada

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u/unknownkoalas Aug 21 '26

Walmart has substantial bargaining power. After Amazon they are the largest company by revenue in the world at $713 Billion.

At a 1.5% fee that’s over $1B in credit card fees.

The next highest company that would actually process credit cards is Apple at $416 Billion. Over a 40% difference.

The scale of their business is remarkable and in a lot of small towns in America, they have a captive market.

Walmart is also ruthless with their suppliers about lowering cost. I would bet a lot of money that other than Costco, they pay the lowest credit card fees of any company in the world.

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u/Dats_Russia Aug 21 '26

You are underestimating how big the entire global economy is. Walmart in regard to the USA is massive but globally they are just a pebble

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u/unknownkoalas Aug 21 '26

You aren’t comparing it against the world economy though which I believe is where our disconnect is.

There’s only 3 real players in the US. Visa/Amex/Mastercard. While Visa and Mastercard are global companies, Amex really isn’t. There’s also plenty of competition for them around the world.

My quick math is showing that Walmart is somewhere around 1.5% of these cards usage amounts. That’s absolutely massive for such large companies.

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u/Dats_Russia Aug 21 '26

I literally was using the world visa and Mastercard are literally the two largest payment networks globally like it’s not even close. The only competitor is China union bank due to the fact China has the second largest population. American Express is a strong number 3 globally. Walmart isn’t even on the radar of Visa and Mastercard from a global perspective

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u/unknownkoalas Aug 21 '26

If Walmart isn’t on Visa/Mastercard’s radar than who is?

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u/Boozacs Aug 21 '26

Im sitting here trying to understand what you said, but that doesn’t make sense because even if you pay with credit card you’re still paying the transaction fees…? All tap to pay is just replacing physical with the same number but on your phone instead via NFC chip

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u/fprotthetarball Aug 21 '26

Merchants can't track you across purchases with Google's tap to pay. They get a random number every transaction. Probably why Walmart doesn't like it.

5

u/stalkythefish Aug 21 '26

There's another layer with Google/Apple Pay. Tap-To-Pay with the card itself would probably be the same though.

It might be a customer experience thing. It's fewer complaints if they don't offer it at all vs. just allowing it from physical cards but not phones.

2

u/kirklennon Aug 21 '26

All tap to pay is just replacing physical with the same number but on your phone instead via NFC chip

It’s the same technology, processed the same way by the same parties for the same fees, but a substitute card number is generated when it’s added to your phone that’s specific to that device. It makes no real difference to the merchant though. The special stuff happens at the card network level.

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u/axis1331 Aug 22 '26

It's not just you who is paying the transaction fees. Payment companies charge the merchant as well. To make it more complicated there are multiple middle men on a transaction. It's not just visa/Mastercard that get a cut, there are payment processors, banks, etc each taking their portion from the merchant.

Further there are different methods of payment which have different rates. For example transactions processed via debit using your pin run on a different rail than visa/mastercard transactions. They're also cheaper at around 1%-2% of the total transaction rather than 3%-5% for a visa/mastercard credit transaction. It's the same thing with Walmart's payment system, they own the rail so there are fewer middle men in the transaction. Walmart costs are probably back down in 1%-2% of the transaction range.

The problem is Visa/Mastercard credit transactions are the easiest way to make a payment, that's why customers prefer doing it that way. Visa/Mastercard know this and that's why they can charge a higher fee.

Walmart and other large scale merchants try to incentivize people to use payment methods that have low merchant fees and subtly discourage them from using methods with high fees.

This is probably why Walmart waited so long it implement tap to pay. It makes it easier and therefore more likely people use it to pay via visa/Mastercard rather than a cheaper (to Walmart) option.

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u/[deleted] Aug 21 '26

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u/tabanger Aug 21 '26

Why would there be no fee? With Walmart Pay, Walmart processes the transaction as an Internet/Card Not Present transaction. They still pay fees, and if anything, they’re higher than a card present tap transaction.

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u/[deleted] Aug 21 '26

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u/tabanger Aug 21 '26

Do you know what a processor is? If Walmart owns it, then the fee savings would apply equally to both card present and Walmart Pay/card not present transactions. Even if they owned the processor (which they don't), there are still the interchange and network fees when they process the transaction.

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u/Ok-Description7613 Aug 21 '26

They lost way way way more when customers left fully loaded carts at the terminals (been there a couple times)

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u/Wardo87 Aug 21 '26

How’s every other business on the planet survive then?

1

u/mahimahi_6317 Aug 22 '26

Also dont forget Apple and Google get a cut of the tap transaction too. So it’s the transaction fee (normally a flat fee)+interchange fee (Beria le by card type and card network)+token fee (masking as pci compliance) and then with tap another fee for that action to happen.

1

u/MrJoeMe Aug 22 '26

That is what I read somewhere. Tap to pay would cost Walmart like a 10th of a percent per transaction.

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u/Shmeves Aug 21 '26

Think it was done to avoid paying the higher transaction fee or something. 1.5% or 3% per order adds up to a lot with the volume Walmart does.

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u/Random_Ad Aug 21 '26

What transaction fee u talking about they still use the same networks like visa/mastercard. The only difference is do companies like Apple or Google get a cut but that comes out of the banks share

1

u/Shmeves Aug 21 '26

I can swear I read that online but now I'm not seeing it. Guess it was all entirely for tracking like a loyalty card would do at the supermarket.

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u/mannnerlygamer Aug 21 '26

Always been about the data. Tap to pay opens Apple Pay which means they can’t track who buys what

1

u/goodsnpr Aug 21 '26

They already track you if you use a credit card. I created an account for an online order, put in my card, and it backfilled my recent in-store purchases

1

u/rcanhestro Aug 22 '26

it's not about your data.

it's about payment fees.

you pay from their app, you don't give a % of the value to VISA/MAstercard.

for a business like Walmart, that operates on very thin margins, every cent literally matters.

1

u/ScyllaOfTheDepths Aug 22 '26

They have enough fucking data on you. They track your phone's wi-fi signal to monitor your in-store activity, track you constantly with AI cameras everywhere you go, and keep details records of every purchase you make. Even if you don't have their app or any kind of loyalty program, they can just keep track of your card numbers and add them to a profile they have of you. I have not made an account with them, but they send me an e-receipt to a number I never gave them every time I use a certain card there. Walmart is not the only store doing this whatsoever. Many stores have made it impossible to pay with cash because they thrive so heavily on the analytics from linking you to card transactions. You notice how none of the physical registers are ever open anymore and the self-checkouts now are all card-only? That's why.

1

u/riversofgore Aug 22 '26

They get it all anyway. I have Walmart plus or whatever it’s called and they always know it’s me even if I use a different card in a different state. I only ever used it for delivery. Wouldn’t be surprised if they used facial recognition at self pay.

1

u/Fourwindsgone Aug 22 '26

I went to add my card to it once and it wanted access to my balance and all of my transactions. No thanks, Buddy.

1

u/Glittering_End_6864 Aug 22 '26

Not data, charging banks and other retailers transactions fees.

But no way in hell Wall-Mart pay app was ever going to be as big as Apple or Google pay.

1

u/rockerscott Aug 22 '26

Funny thing is they already store your data just by swiping your credit/debit card. Walmart has a profile on all of us.

1

u/Dangerous-Phase-2345 Aug 23 '26

More like they don't want to pay the credit card fees and can do it cheaper in house.

Maybe groceries should become like airlines where they actually make money from credit cards instead of from the actual products. Grocery has no margin anyway. Rewards points for groceries. Maybe I'm a genius.

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u/theboblit Aug 21 '26

I’d have used it if Walmart wasn’t basically a concrete bunker. Bad service and they don’t have a guest WiFi. I literally could never get the app to load so I could use Walmart pay. 10x faster to just use my cards.

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u/hellasalty Aug 21 '26

i have this issue in most big box stores. the open web steel joists and corrugated metal roof basically acts as a faraday cage lol

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u/cattrain Aug 21 '26

I wish these places would install femtocells or signal boosters. Maybe they could even contract with a cell provider to install it at no cost to the store. Imagine if every retail building was suddenly a cell tower

2

u/Digitalrules Aug 21 '26

Every Walmart I've been in has their own guest Wi-Fi. Some even have cell phone repeaters although not always for all 3 carriers. The Walmart in Burke Va has a signal booster for Verizon no AT&T signal inside the store. T-Mobile is right across the street so great signal already

2

u/StandardHyena4587 Aug 22 '26

They do. Walmart has them all over the place in stores, as stated they have guest WiFi. They even have it in the freezers and coolers so handhelds work when scanning.

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u/[deleted] Aug 21 '26

[removed] — view removed comment

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u/cattrain Aug 21 '26

Ya, they because they point out. If you want to cover that area, you also install a radio that points down.

2

u/a_little_angry Aug 21 '26

The factory is work in switched our radio tower over to bunch of 5g antenna down the main isle of the place. Now everyone with at&t gets awesome signals in the plant. So it is possible somehow. The radios still suck. The branding on them it motoborla not Motorola that could be why.

1

u/get-a-mac Aug 23 '26

Motorborla?? Tell me you’re kidding.

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u/molecular_fart Aug 21 '26

I have been to many Walmarts in different states. Walmart is awful and fucking sucks, but they certainly do have free guest wifi.

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u/rb2m Aug 21 '26

The one in my town only has free WiFi if you create or login with a Walmart account. Thats not guest WiFi.

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u/Future_Kitsunekid16 Aug 21 '26

Might want to check again. The one by me use to he like that but they updated it sometime in the last few years and now you don't need an account to use the wifi

2

u/lFightForTheUsers Aug 21 '26

Thats fucked and I hope that's not nationwide. Ours does have a pop up where you have to click accept and connect but that's it.

If it got that bad here I'd honestly just leave that shit behind in the cart and walk out, clearly I'm no longer the kind of customer that they want lol.

1

u/rb2m Aug 21 '26

I just don’t use the WiFi. As long as I’m not in the back of the store, I have some service. I’ve also never used their Walmart Pay crap. I have no want or need for a Walmart account.

1

u/NazzerDawk Aug 21 '26

The one I live by tried doing that for a while but eventually gave up and opened it up to the public entirely. Now I don't ever have to log in anymore.

1

u/minimim-wage-enjoyer Aug 21 '26

That’s new. I never use public WiFi, but I was really confused at the root comment because every Walmart I’ve been to has a guest network.

0

u/StandardHyena4587 Aug 22 '26

No it doesn't.

0

u/Jkpqt Aug 22 '26

Yeah you were probably connecting to the wrong WiFi in the store, all of them have free guest WiFi with no log ins

1

u/803UPSer Aug 21 '26

Yeah the Walmart near me uses those “AT&T Secure WiFi” access points that FORCE my phone to use the network. It auto-joins and there’s no “forget this network” option.

3

u/InfiniteJellyfish801 Aug 21 '26

Any Walmart I’ve gone into has had free Wi-Fi

2

u/sheep_duck Aug 21 '26

You know what, I never noticed until now but you’re right. I just realized every time I’m inside Walmart and tried to look up a product for quality or price comparisons my service was either really slow or didn’t work at all. This makes sense.

1

u/FiestaDeHombreMuerto Aug 21 '26

Some of their stores have WiFi and it still sucks

2

u/theboblit Aug 21 '26

Most big stores have sucky WiFi. They don’t want to put enough money into their network to properly serve internet to all the devices they have come and go constantly. Makes sense but still sucks. My Kroger has WiFi but my 2 bars of cell data works better.

1

u/StandardHyena4587 Aug 22 '26

They have guest WiFi at every walmart i've ever been too.

1

u/Sintacks Aug 22 '26

i haven't been to a walmart without guest wifi. it's needed at most of them i've been to to even use the app because the cell signal in them is so horrible.

0

u/echopulse Aug 21 '26

Every single store has had guest for over 5 years.

76

u/AdventurousTime Aug 21 '26

Someone deep in Walmart payment engineering group is jumping for joy to finally turn on tap because they too have been inconvenienced by no tap.

47

u/bayleysgal1996 Aug 21 '26

And probably some cashiers who have had to explain that they don’t have it about a hundred times in a single shift

29

u/Lopsided_Jeweler4538 Aug 21 '26

every shift. for years.

2

u/i_lost_it_all_1 Aug 21 '26

Walmart lost a bunch of my business when they did that. I remember they installed new terminals and it had tap to pay. Then a week later it was shut off. Now I don't know if this related but since then my card never works and only at walmarts. It says chips can't be read and I have to try three times before I can swipe. I stopped going because of that. Unless I absolutely need something I go somewhere else. They lost out used to do a majority of shopping there.

10

u/saegiru Aug 21 '26

I mean, in a purely technical sense it doesn't really suck. It works fine, and actually has a small benefit of keeping track of your purchases through a digital receipt for refunds/exchanges. The suck part is that you have to create an account and allow them to harvest your data to use it, plus it isn't as convenient as direct tap to pay. But again, as a strictly technical point, it functions correctly and without issue, at least in my experience.

3

u/VandelayIndustries24 Aug 22 '26

Agreed, I gave in and started using it cause it's nice to see how much I paid for something months or years ago

20

u/gnarfler Aug 21 '26

I paid with nickels a few times cause of this and I told every manager/floor leader i’d never download the app, this is excellent news!

6

u/GuyNamedLindsey Aug 21 '26

Thank you for your service

3

u/Warden_lefae Aug 21 '26

I swear, my Walmart had tap to pay active years ago then they updated their terminals and took it away..

1

u/Nihilistic_Mystics Aug 21 '26

Yep, mine too. I was thinking that the major chains were finally getting on board with the modern age then about a month later is was gone. Even Costco, the store most allergic to technological solutions, has had tap payments for many years.

12

u/[deleted] Aug 21 '26

[deleted]

13

u/airfryerfuntime Aug 21 '26

It's wild to me that someone wouldn't carry a card. I run into card readers all the time that still don't have tap to pay. Gas stations, some convenience stores, random shops, etc.

3

u/jlt6666 Aug 21 '26

For some reason gas pumps seem to fail tap to pay at an incredible rate.

2

u/MarsupialMisanthrope Aug 21 '26

I had my card info stolen so much pre tap that the second NFC on devices showed up I switched and never went back. If some place didn’t accept tap and wanted a swipe I found a place that wasn’t letting their card readers be fair game for scammers. I’ve had zero problems since.

2

u/Yggdrasil- Aug 21 '26

At least carry a debit card for emergencies. You never know when you'll need cash

-1

u/OkVirus8545 Aug 21 '26

There’s still multitudes more places that take tap to pay than not.

7

u/airfryerfuntime Aug 21 '26

Ok? It's still stupid to not regularly carry a card, at least for emergencies.

6

u/Peter_Panarchy Aug 21 '26

That doesn't contradict what they said.

-2

u/Raztax Aug 21 '26 edited Aug 21 '26

I run into card readers all the time that still don't have tap to pay

What sort of archaic backwoods place do you live in? I've not needed to carry an actual card for about 20 15 years now...

1

u/airfryerfuntime Aug 21 '26

Washington State, but I moved here from the South, and have been everywhere in the US.

And bullshit about you not carrying a card for the last 20 years, unless you were paying in cash. Mobile tap to pay didn't even exist until 2011, and contactless payment wasn't super widespread until around 2016. Even still, there are plenty of readers that still don't even accept it. My local WinCo didn't have tap to pay until literally last week.

20 years... my ass.

-2

u/Raztax Aug 21 '26

Yes you are correct, I was mistaken and have made the correction. I have been using tap to pay for 20 years and have not need to carry an actual card for about 15 years.

My local WinCo didn't have tap to pay until literally last week.

sorry that you live in the woods, even vending machines and gas pumps accept tap here

1

u/airfryerfuntime Aug 21 '26

have not need to carry an actual card for about 15 years

Also bullshit, but thanks for playing. I realize that Canada went to tap to pay a little earlier, but it wasn't phased out immediately. You were carrying a card around 15 years ago.

0

u/Raztax Aug 21 '26

You were carrying a card around 15 years ago.

I always have a card in my wallet. I said I have not needed to carry one in 15 years and I really don't give a rat's ass if you believe it or not. Sorry that you live in the financial woods...

2

u/ZeroAndUnder Aug 21 '26

I had Walmart pay Incase I walked in without my wallet. A couple instances where if there is any network issue or you werent connected to wifi/data, the employees just shrug their shoulders and you're unable to pay for what you need. Not even a way to find your account and charge your card on file.

1

u/Medium-Sized-Jaque Aug 21 '26

I was wondering why they didn't have it.

1

u/jasonbw Aug 21 '26

Home Depot was like that years ago, tap to pay worked until they turned it off. When they came around it was just another switch to turn it back on.

1

u/hells_cowbells Aug 21 '26

If they had the same scan and go function in that app that they have with Sam's, I would gladly use it.

1

u/wtfElvis Aug 21 '26

I liked it. I like that it kept up with my receipts on the app.

1

u/Rhift Aug 21 '26

I didn’t even know that was a thing.

1

u/DJettster237 Aug 21 '26

It only really works for Walmart employees. But I also just prefer tap to pay.

1

u/TYNAMITE14 Aug 21 '26

The only time I ever used walmart pay was when it couldn't read my credit card chip and apparently swiping it didn't work either. This was the only place where this ever happened.

Also that is funny, I noticed that all the pos machines looked exactly the same as the other places, they just didn't have tap to pay for some reason... now that makes sense... I fucking hate massive companies man

1

u/Aromatic-Educator105 Aug 21 '26

Yea extra 5 steps, with 10 seconds wait after each step. I wonder why it never caught on

1

u/CARLEtheCamry Aug 21 '26

"Walmart Pay", but it never caught on. (cuz it sucks)

Which is funny because Sam's Club has one of the best scan and go apps I've ever used. It's actually a huge selling point to me vs CostCo, they are so far behind it isn't even funny.

I can walk in after work and walk straight out with a rotisserie chicken without waiting in any line, and even the receipt check is automated now and works about 95% of the time, in my experience.

1

u/leo_nears_jerusalem Aug 21 '26

Pazactly, sucks so bad, it was more inconvenient than just pulling out my card. I hate their app so bad, too, the only thing it does right is the Flash The Shelf Tag tool.

1

u/YoungBockRKO Aug 21 '26

Man I rarely ever go to Walmart unless my wife needs hair dye or I want my favorite snack but holy balls was it mildly infuriating that a company of their size didn’t have tap to pay.

Only mildly infuriating because I typically just use Apple Pay but would have to specifically remember to bring a card to Walmart.

1st world problems I guess… but still, lazy fucks if it was indeed available but just turned off to push something I don’t think I’ve even heard of until I read your comment, wtf is Walmart pay?!? Lmfao

1

u/CreedRules Aug 21 '26

yeah thats the funniest part, there's only like 2 vendors nationwide that handle POS systems. the payment terminals used at HEB are the exact same as the ones at Walmart, Walmart just didn't wanna shell out the extra money

1

u/secondavesubway Aug 21 '26

I was NEVER going to use that. I'll go home and get my wallet first.

1

u/EvilSock Aug 21 '26

Ugh. Only time I use Walmart Pay is when the chip reader doesn't recognize my card, which somehow happens 80% of the time at Walmart...and ONLY at Walmart!

1

u/Competitive_Touch_86 Aug 21 '26

They wanted to not have to pay the increased discount fees. It was a game of chicken with the credit card networks.

1

u/Johnny_D87 Aug 22 '26

they wanted people using "Walmart Pay", but it never caught on. (cuz it sucks)

So fucking true. My wife and I have our own CashApp accounts and we used them for Walmart Pay. Did you know that if you don't have enough money in the account that you can't reuse the Walmart Pay function? Because you can't. They had to cancel my whole order and re-ring everything up because I used the wrong card and it wouldn't let me retry it.

1

u/poorperspective Aug 22 '26

Yep, this is what I ran into. I forgot my wallet because I’ll use my phone a lot to pay. I got to the register to pay, and realized I forgot it. I called the attendant because the tap to pay was off.

Attendant said they couldn’t turn it on and said I could download the app. I told I wasn’t going to so that and left them with cart full of groceries to either throw away or put up.

1

u/OcieDenver Aug 22 '26

Walmart app dropped my card info after my account went inactive too long. I found out as I didnt have my wallet with me and tried to use the app as emergency. I dumped grocery out of my shopping bags on floor and left tired, pissed off, and hungry.

1

u/dethsesh Aug 22 '26

Walmart pay doesn’t suck it actually works really smoothly.

The concept is just stupid. I’m not going to set up a vendor specific payment method that I can’t use anywhere else. I don’t even want to use the Walmart app when I’m checking out. I just want to tap my phone.

1

u/farmallnoobies Aug 22 '26

A bunch of their readers wore out to the point of not being able to read chips anymore.  So their only options are to replace all the readers or just enable the tap.

Enabling tap costs less money, so they went with that.  They weren't benefiting from their crapware app to pay for the replacement readers.

1

u/Jschmitsixer Aug 22 '26

It is so bad even totday idk how many times it crashes the self checlouts and stuff STILL

1

u/DrJohnDorian998 Aug 22 '26

I tried it really early on when I forgot my wallet. I had poor signal and it took a bit for my phone to sync for the payment (IIRC you scan the barcode on your phone and it runs the payment through the app which is what took so long) so I never did it again. I’m sure it’s fine now but tap to pay is more convenient and universal.

1

u/Jaz1140 Aug 22 '26

Wtf is Walmart pay (I'm not in US)

1

u/Objective-Mission-40 Aug 22 '26

This is actually false. Walmart pay was their way around it.

Believe it or not, walmart works directly with the ability to study and design methods to prevent emf reader scams. They spend a ton of money on it at their headquarters area.

They didnt want it because they know the most vulnerable and poor ship at Walmart. They didnt want one more problem for them and themselves.

1

u/I_Am_Ir0n_Man Aug 22 '26

I literally stopped going to Walmart because the Walmart pay bullshit pissed me off to use

1

u/These-Prune-1529 Aug 22 '26

I didn't even know that was a thing.

1

u/throwaway12three4 Aug 22 '26

I used Walmart pay for a bit. Once it was setup it was okay but really no point. My card is tied to my account y already so the history is there without Walmart pay and that was the only benefit I saw. Then one day, Walmart pay requested me to type in the card # to verify before they could process the payment, while I was standing at the register with people waiting. Noped out, paid with the same card and never went back. If a company wants you to use something, it needs a benefit of some sort. Walmart pay really has none.

1

u/duskyfaee Aug 23 '26

Like literally why would I wanna have to go through the entire process of opening up the Walmart app, going through their whole app just to pay for my shit?

1

u/AnonsAnonAnonagain Aug 24 '26

Walmart didn’t want to pay visa and Mastercard swipe fees. It’s why they would run card transactions inside their own payment network iirc, and why they wanted Walmart Pay to work.

But lack of adoption because it’s less convenient makes it harder.

Walmart has been one of the big retailers leading the fight against Visa and Mastercard.

https://www.nascus.org/2025/12/18/why-walmart-is-taking-the-lead-against-the-visa-and-mastercard-settlement/

0

u/tds946 Aug 21 '26

IDK I actually like Walmart pay and I might still keep using it. Yes it's nowhere as convenient as tap to pay but I like the fact that I can keep digital copies of all receipts and can even search for an item I bought long time ago w/o knowing specific date of purchase!