Rite Aid and CVS give Apple Pay and Google Wallet the shaft, purportedly to push their own technology
Even the most rabid of Android fans should be able to appreciate Apple Pay. Say what you want about Google doing it first, but nothing can quite wake the public up to new technology like Apple finally getting on-board. The advent of Apple Pay in the new iPhone 6 and iPhone 6+ opened the floodgates for NFC-based point-of-sale solutions across the nation. Not all of it has been roses, though, as two of the biggest retailers who used to support contact-less payments are about to pull out.
Rite Aid and CVS have both confirmed that they are no longer allowing NFC payments in their retail stores. The two companies have allowed NFC payments for quite some time, though it was mainly to satiate the tap-and-pay features present in many modern debit and credit cards. It just so happens that they also worked with Google Wallet and Apple Pay.
Unfortunately company representatives haven’t given a clear reason as to why they’ve denied NFC payments, but one suggestion is that it’s due to a consortium of retailers — dubbed the Merchant Customer Exchange — coming together to create their own payments solution. Rite Aid and CVS are part of said consortium.
The solution proposed by the consortium, which is due at some point in 2015, is said to use QR barcodes instead of NFC, a very cumbersome way of dealing with payments compared to the simple tap of a phone. Apparently no one in the Merchant Customer Exchange realized 2008 has long passed us by and QR codes are no longer cool (though they are still useful for many other needs and situations).
To be fair, their solution does solve the problem of accessibility for many folks as NFC is not available in all phones or tablets, though even the most affordable devices are beginning to be loaded up with NFC these days and it won’t be long before it becomes as necessary as GPS or Bluetooth.
So who else is part of this consortium that might be looking to make similar moves in the near future? Here’s a list of partner merchants as per the consortium’s website:
- Sheetz
- Shell
- Acme Fresh Market
- CVS
- Alon
- Bahama Breeze
- Banana Republic
- Baskin Robbins
- Bed Bath & Beyond
- Best Buy
- BuyBuy Baby
- The Capital Grille
- Chili’s
- Walmart
- ShopRite
- Southwest Airlines
- Sunoco
- Target
- Wawa
- Wendy’s
- Yard House
- Christmas Tree Shops
- Dunkin Donuts
- Conoco
- Dick’s Sporting Goods
- Dillard’s
- Exxon Mobil
- Gap
- GetGo
- Eddie V’s
- Face Values
- Giant Eagle
- HMS Host
- Hobby Lobby
- HyVee
- K-Mart
- Kohl’s
- Kum & Go
- Longhorn Steakhouse
- Lowe’s
- Maggiano’s
- Meijer
- Michaels
- My Goods Market
- Old Navy
- Olive Garden
- Phillips 66
- Price Rite
- Publix
- QuikTrip
- RaceTrac
- RiteAid
- Sam’s Club
- Sears
Whew, that’s a long list, and there aren’t many ticky-tack names on it either — these are major nationwide retailers with big names. It’s not clear if all of these guys will be looking to make similar moves in the weeks or months to come, but CVS and Rite Aid’s swift actions don’t give us any comfort.
It really is a shame that business comes before consumer freedom, and it’ll be up to each individual to decide if this move by CVS and Rite Aid is enough to steer them to different stores (such as their largest competitor Walgreens). Let us know how you feel about this in the comments below.
[via CNBC]