Dive Brief:
- Retail juggernaut Walmart on Monday started giving customers more ways to pay, by tapping their phones, smartwatches or cards, including those in a digital wallet such as Apple Pay or Google Pay, the retailer said.
- The company is accepting the tap-to-pay payments at some Walmart and Sam’s Clubs stores initially, with plans to roll out the payment option to all of its approximately 4,600 stores in the U.S. by the end of the year, according to a Friday press release.
- Walmart will make the new payment options available at its gas stations starting in 2027, the company said, noting it seeks to give customers “another familiar and convenient way to pay at checkout using contactless payment methods.”
Dive Insight:
Walmart is the largest retailer in the world, based on annual revenue of $692 billion last year, according to the National Retail Federation.
The retailer’s new tap-to-pay option also lets its customers pay with Samsung Pay or Garmin Pay digital wallets, and via other wearables, according to a frequently asked questions post of the retailer.
Walmart has been at the forefront of investigating and expanding the realm of payment options for its customers, partly as a means of lowering the substantial costs it shoulders in accepting credit and debit card payments. When the retailer accepts a card for payments that isn’t a Walmart or Sam’s Club card, it must pay higher interchange fees to banks and card networks.
The company has been trying to expand payment options that would lower the cost of payments. For instance, another card that it accepts, the digital OnePay card, was created by a fintech startup that it has backed with investments. The Bentonville, Arkansas-based retailer worked with the venture capital firm Ribbit Capital in 2021 to create the startup.
Walmart has also expanded the way its customers can pay by offering them buy now, pay later options.
Last year, the Swedish company Klarna Group partnered with the Walmart-backed fintech to offer financing at the retail giant via a digital payments app. That let Klarna muscle in on what had been exclusive territory at the retailer for San Francisco-based Affirm Holdings as the provider of BNPL installment loans.
