When you’re presented with a payment terminal or when you’re in a line to pay, you’re expected to pull out cash or a credit card. If you do anything unusual or that doesn’t work, you slow down the payment process and people around you feel embarrassed (like when someone’s card is declined.) No one wants to be the cause of that, so they are reluctant to try a new way to pay that they don’t know will work and that requires to do things they’re not as comfortable with. Instead, they do the habitual action that always works (pulling out a credit card) and that if it glitches won’t be their fault (since they’re standing there with a credit card like a normal person would instead of just their phone.) They could get over that concern by doing research or practicing Apple Pay in some inconsequential situation but most people won’t do that. Hopefully that makes sense.
Any time I can use my watch with Apple Pay I do. Still run into a lot of stores that don’t have the capability. More of the gas stations near me now have Apple Pay compatible pumps.
I rarely use anything other than Apple Pay when I’m out and about, and I’m an old man. So I didn’t believe that statistic. If I use it, surely all the young people are using it.
Then I turned to a woman at work who is about half my age and seems more engrossed in her iPhone than I ever am. I asked her if she uses Apple Pay. She said she never uses it and doesn’t even know how it works.
I thought that usage would increase during the pandemic with people not wanting to touch payment terminals or hand over their cards. My wife watches me use my watch all the time but when she pays for something she tends to pull her card out instead of using her watch. Neither of us tend to use the iPhone for payments, finding the watch more convenient.
A couple of years ago I used my watch to pay in the grocery store and the young cashier was amazed I was able to do that. I’m thinking, “I’m the old fart here, you’re supposed to know how to do these things.”
LOL, ok, but often it’s not a user issue, it’s usually a hardware or software issue on the vendor side when an Apple Pay transaction goes sideways. That’s been my experience.
That said, I think there are a myriad of reasons why Apple Pay isn’t being used by more people (if you believe the article, which I honestly find hard to believe). One reason I think might be the cause is that when you set up a new phone, it asks if you want to set up Apple Pay, and most users just accept and continue with the new phone activation process. So the users (non-tech types which are the vast majority of iPhone users) may have activated it (as stated in the article) but they don’t use it because they don’t know that they have it or how to use it.
The article only talks about Apple Pay on iPhone and doesn’t discuss usage by Watch (which is how I use it all the time), or via the web and apps
Although Pay launched in 2015, the USA had relatively few card readers able to use it. There was much angst at the time about how far the US lagged other areas of the world in chip and pin, never mind contactless. It takes time for a wholesale adjustment from paper slips, via chip and pin, to contactless. I might suggest that Pay drive, to some degree, the wider rollout of card readers (surmise only, no evidence).
I expect Pay usage to be a lit higher in places like Europe and the UK, where contactless payment was well established well before 2015.
if iPhones represent (say) 50% of smartphones and 6% of iPhone users use Pay, that’s 3% of the smartphone-owning population. Which is a very large number (even if 50% is an overestimate
-It’s a survey - we all know how reliable they are. Especially the ones which don’t describe their methodology
Sorry, I meant to say that when something goes wrong with the terminal, and everyone looks over to see what’s wrong, people want to be standing there with the right thing (a credit card) instead of using something that looks weird or not right (a phone, a watch) so no bystander or the cashier thinks it’s the payer’s fault. There’s a fundamental discomfort with money and delay involved, at least in the US.
Since the beginning of COVID-19, I have hardly ever touched cash. Apple Pay has become my standard method of payment, usually with my watch.
I leave my purse in my handbag at home - less to decontaminate. Almost everywhere accepts contactless payment, even for small quantities, even in street markets. Some market vendors who don’t have a card machine will even “borrow” one from a neighbouring stall, who then gives them the cash amount.
The only reason I sometimes have a physical card in my pocket is because there seems to be some arbitrary limit on either the number, or the quantity, of transactions permitted before I’m forced to use a card, and this apparent limit then resets.
At the beginning of 2019, me paying for something via the Watch produced surprised looks from the vendors/cashiers. By June, everyone I met took it in their stride.
Yeah! Just like when people count out change to give to the cashier, or they are using a bunch of coupons from the coupon stash they keep with them when they shop. And forget it if the coupons are expired or not otherwise honored! Selfish people!
I assume you’re mocking me, but it does take iron will or obliviousness to be a serious couponer.
VISA actually ran a lot of ads in the US to try to make people feel clumsy for using cash 15-20 years ago. I can’t find the video online, but they showed a line of people paying gracefully with credit cards to “The Blue Danube” and at the end a guy awkwardly pulled out cash and ruined the music. A little disturbing, when you think about it…
I don’t live in the US so no idea how things work “over there”, but where I live I think most people do not carry cards anymore, they use ApplePay or the Google equivalent (or their Bank’s e-version)
For me it seems strange to have to remember to carry a card when you have your watch (or phone) on you at all times.
Handheld/portable readers at gas stations, restaurants, retail establishments, etc. are extremely rare in the US. To the point where the only way I’ll see one is if I hop the border and have dinner in Canada.
Instead, we put a lot of trust in restaurant staff, gas station attendants, and others, hoping that they won’t steal our credit card details while the card is away from us for 30 seconds to 5 minutes or more. This used to be (maybe it still is, I don’t know) a common way for one’s credit card to be compromised - server takes your card from your table, to their POS terminal, jots down the numbers, rings you up, then returns the card. Or just tampers with the tip amount after you’ve left, since you just hand-write the tip amount on the receipt.
In New Jersey and all but a handful of counties in Oregon (it depends upon county population), it is illegal to pump your own gas. So you have no choice. You pull up to the pump, roll your window down, and hand over your card so they can swipe it.
@lukei4655, I’ve not seen a portable card reader in NJ either, but I’ve only filled up in NJ a handful of times over the past 5 years.
I find this quite fascinating. I live in Australia and over here I’m still to find a shop that doesn’t take Apple Pay these days. I never use anything else to pay but my watch or phone.
For myself, I’m in the UK and personally use it for just about everything. The only thing I couldn’t use it for was in a car park recently, it was cash only. I can’t remember the last time I got my debit card out of my physical wallet. I also use Apple Wallet for cinema passes, flight tickets, tour tickets and my NHS COVID pass.
At this point I am using Apple Pay for almost all of my “out of the house” transactions except for (1) restaurants-not that i am going to many these days and (2) Lowes. I find the latter particularly irksome. I can’t imagine a large chain not supporting contactless payment these days (I don’t know about Home Depot since Lowes is closer
Correction… Add gas to the list. Most gas stations don’t take Apple Pay yet
I’m just back from wandering a food and drink market in a neighbouring town.
All market stalls and mostly single traders and each one accepted Apple Pay with SumUp readers.
Was great.
Pre-Covid, I still used a lot of cash for small purchases and handed over a credit card for gasoline and groceries.
Now, I never use cash. I still insert my card in the gas pump. But everywhere else, I use Apple Pay with my watch. I touch only my own watch and hold it near the reader.
If and when Covid is gone, I don’t see changing from my new habit back to my old way.
