BENTONVILLE, Ark. — Wal-Mart switched on its mobile-payment solution at a majority of its U.S. locations recently, with a reported 46% increase in use in a single summer week, the company reported.
Earlier this month, Wal-Mart officials announced that Walmart Pay was available in more than 4,600 of its stores nationwide, which accounts for 87% of its network, according to New York-based Statista.
Beyond helping ease the sting Wal-Mart feels from high credit and debit-card interchange fees, the payment option gets customers to engage with the retailer’s mobile app. “Walmart Pay is just the beginning,” said Daniel Eckert, senior vice president of services for Wal-Mart U.S. “We’re building deeper relationships with our customers across our ecosystem and are looking forward to delivering new tools like Walmart Pay that allow them to use the Walmart App as their remote control for a faster, more convenient shopping experience.”
Wal-Mart announced the availability of its mobile-payment solution nationally in early July via a circular that reaches 40 million customers, according to a report from ATMmarketplace.com, Louisville, Ky. The chain intends to follow up with “robust” advertising, the report said.
The Walmart Pay process uses Quick Response (QR) codes that appear on the payment terminal. Using the app, customers take a photo of the code, which initiates the transaction, said the ATMmarketplace.com article.
The Bentonville, Ark.-based retailer released additional facts:
- 82% percent of customers would recommend using Walmart Pay.
- Three out of four customers have given Walmart Pay a five-star rating in the Walmart App.
- 88% of transactions come from repeat Walmart Pay users.
- The transactions take place behind Wal-Mart’s firewalls so the process doesn’t store payment credentials on a customer’s phone, nor are those credentials exchanged at the point of sale.
The payment option is a new addition to the Walmart app, which ranks among the top three retail apps in the Apple and Google app stores with more than 20 million active users, Wal-Mart officials said. The app was built with an emphasis on making shopping faster and easier for customers—from refilling a pharmacy prescription to building a gift registry and finding where an item is located in a store, Wal-Mart officials said.
The app and internal payment solution work with both iOS and Android formats, Wal-Mart officials said.
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