December of 2015 saw Walmart announce it was developing Walmart Pay, its own mobile payments solution. The retailer announced today that following a small test rollout earlier this year, it is rolling out the in-house solution to locations in Texas and Arkansas.
All 480 Walmart retail locations in Texas will support the mobile wallet service beginning today, as well as the 110 stores in Arkansas. Although the company continues to reiterate its plans for a wide-release rollout in the United States soon, it’s still yet to give customers a specific launch window for Walmart Pay beyond the two states announced today.
Checkout using Walmart Pay takes three “easy” steps:
- Open: Visit any register, open the Walmart app and choose Walmart Pay. Activate the camera.
- Scan: At any time during checkout, simply scan the code displayed at the register. Walmart Pay is now connected.
- Done: Associate scans and bags the items… and it’s done. An eReceipt will be sent to the app and can be viewed at any time.
“We can’t wait to hear what our customers and associates in Texas [and Arkansas] think of Walmart Pay. The service was built to make shopping easier and faster, something we know our customers want,” said Daniel Eckert, senior vice president, Services, Walmart U.S. “Walmart Pay is a powerful addition to our app, a tool that we’re using to transform the shopping experience by seamlessly connecting our online assets and our stores for customers. The service opens the door to new and better ways we can serve the 140 million customers who shop our stores each week.”
The company says “mostly any card” can be linked to the service as a payment method. Walmart was one of a number of retailers, including Best Buy and Target, who opted not to climb on the Apple Pay train when it left the station in 2014. They instead backed Current C, an alternate payments service. Best Buy has since seen the error of its ways and is now accepting Apple Pay, while Target is now working on its own homegrown solution, much like Walmart did.
While Walmart’s new app might indicate the chain won’t be accepting any other mobile payments systems, such as Apple Pay or Samsung Pay, Walmart senior vice president of services Daniel Eckert said last year that Walmart Pay allows “for integration of other mobile wallets in the future.”
“The simplicity and ease of Walmart Pay comes not only from how it works, but also in how it’s been built,” said Daniel Eckert, senior vice president, services, Walmart U.S. “We made a strategic decision to design Walmart Pay to work with almost any smartphone and accept almost any payment type – even allowing for the integration of other mobile wallets in the future. The result is an innovation that will make the ease of mobile payments a reality for millions of Americans.”
(And will allow us to track out customers spending habits and other personal information, something Apple Pay doesn’t let us do. (Eckert didn’t say that, it was all mine, sorry. – Ed.))
The Walmart App is available free for the iPhone, in the App Store. [GET IT HERE]
