 TOP STORIES YOU MISSED | Featured Stories | | |   | WALMART WILL DEBUT SUBSCRIPTION PROGRAM IN JULY The retailer is set to launch Walmart+ by the end of this month, Recode reports. The subscription will cost $98 a month and offer members free same-day delivery from Walmart stores as well as other delivery perks, discounts at Walmart gas stations, early access to promotions, and self-checkout tools. The retailer will also introduce a Walmart+ branded credit card and possibly video entertainment. Walmart reportedly planned to introduce Walmart+ in March or April but delayed its debut, and it remains to be seen if it’ll be launched nationally or regionally at first. Walmart+ gives Walmart an answer to Amazon Prime that could help it steal customers from Amazon — but Amazon Prime is difficult to compete with. To win over Prime subscribers, Walmart+ will need to match Amazon Prime’s most popular benefit and differentiate itself — and it may be positioned to do so. Walmart+ can come close to matching Amazon Prime’s ability to offer free and fast shipping — its biggest benefit, as well as leverage grocery and gas businesses, showing how Walmart+ could stand out to consumers. |
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| | |   | CARD NETWORKS EXPAND CLICK TO PAY BEYOND US American Express, Discover, Mastercard, and Visa announced that Click to Pay, an online checkout solution based on Secure Remote Commerce (SRC) specifications developed by EMVCo, is being brought to countries outside of the US for the first time. Click to Pay, which is meant to create a streamlined and consistent checkout experience for shoppers on a number of merchants’ sites, launched in October 2019 in the US and is now being brought to Australia, Brazil, Canada, Hong Kong, Ireland, Kuwait, Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Singapore, United Arab Emirates, and the UK. Global expansion is a key step for Click to Pay because it needs to be widely adopted by merchants to maximize its appeal to consumers. The card networks are working with international partners like Checkout.com and Noon Payments to enable more merchants to offer Click to Pay, and such collaborations will be key to reaching and recruiting more merchants going forward. |
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|   | APPLE PAY MAY ADD QR SUPPORT Code from the second public beta of iOS 14 — the new Apple operating system set to be released in September — indicates that Apple may be planning to add QR and barcode payment support to Wallet, per 9to5Mac. The feature reportedly would allow customers to point their camera at a barcode or QR image and pay with any card registered to Apple Pay, and could also allow iPhones with a QR code of their own to be scanned. Apple hasn’t announced this feature yet, and it wasn’t present in the first beta, so further details are not yet available. The move could help Apple improve its push toward primary wallet status by further expanding wallet acceptance and countering competitors. For Apple, enabling support could help it limit attrition and keep customers as loyal as possible. |
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