Apple Pay returns to Home Depot, grocery chain H-E-B starts to accept it

AppleInsiderAppleInsider
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in iPhone

Two more retailers are joining the many others that support Apple Pay in the United States, with H-E-B adding and Home Depot quietly returning support to their stores.

Hand holding smartphone above a card terminal, displaying contactless payment with card visible on screen.
Apple Pay



Apple Pay will be celebrating the tenth anniversary of its launch in the United States on October 20. Just in time for the milestone, two more retailers are finally adopting the mobile payments platform in their retail stores.

A press release from the Texas-based H-E-B grocery chain confirms that there will be a phased rollout of digital tap-to-pay services across its 380 outlets. This includes support for Apple Pay, along with Samsung Pay and Google Pay.

Apple Pay will be rolled out across the next week at flagship locations in the San Antonio area. Through October and early November, other stores across Texas will be enabled.

The tap-to-pay support includes all cash registers, self-checkout points, pharmacies, and branded restaurants. While you can't use it at fuel pumps, it will be usable at payment windows.

At the same time, Home Depot is also bringing Apple Pay to its locations. Sources of Appleosophy have previously managed to pay with Apple Pay at some locations.

Home Depot did previously say it had plans to introduce Apple Pay to stores back in 2015. At the time, it was allegedly assessing different mobile payment platforms for use in stores.

Ultimately, Home Depot accepted Apple Pay in stores for a short period of time. But, Apple Pay was eventually killed by the retailer.

It is likely that Home Depot is finally adopting Apple Pay to answer consumer demand, and to keep up with its competitors. Its main rival, Lowes, enabled Apple Pay in its U.S. locations in December 2023.

While many retailers have signed up to take Apple Pay payments, including Kroger in April 2023, not everyone has. The biggest yet to make the transition is Walmart, which went to the trouble of producing Walmart Pay instead of accepting Apple Pay.



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Comments

  • Reply 1 of 8
    ssfe11ssfe11 Posts: 92member
    Finally for Home Depot! Absolutely luv Apple Pay!
    williamlondonjamnapMplsPgregoriusm
  • Reply 2 of 8
    mike1mike1 Posts: 3,411member
    It's worth noting that Home Depot did not accept any type of contactless payment options. It wasn't only Apple Pay that wasn't available.
    jamnapgregoriusmForumPost
  • Reply 3 of 8
    yyzguyyyzguy Posts: 15member
    mike1 said:
    It's worth noting that Home Depot did not accept any type of contactless payment options. It wasn't only Apple Pay that wasn't available.
    Exactly!  I rarely use Apple Pay because I find tap to pay more convenient.   I’m a regular Home Depot shopper and hoping the machines that accept Apple Pay will also work with regular RFID cards.   I’ll certainly use Apple Pay if needed 
    gregoriusm
  • Reply 4 of 8
    profprof Posts: 95member
    mike1 said:
    It's worth noting that Home Depot did not accept any type of contactless payment options. It wasn't only Apple Pay that wasn't available.
    Of course. Basically the title should read: "Home Depot and H-E-B are finally arriving in the 2020s by adding contactless payments"... which is absolutely ridiculous. Here in Europe you have to search very hard to find a shop that doesn't take (contactless) payments since various radical security improvements over the last couple of years have enforced payment fulfilment providers to replace their card readers a few times and it would be ridiculous to swap outdated technology against slightly less outdated technology without contactless payment support.
    jamnapForumPost
  • Reply 5 of 8
    mike1mike1 Posts: 3,411member
    prof said:
    mike1 said:
    It's worth noting that Home Depot did not accept any type of contactless payment options. It wasn't only Apple Pay that wasn't available.
    Of course. Basically the title should read: "Home Depot and H-E-B are finally arriving in the 2020s by adding contactless payments"... which is absolutely ridiculous. Here in Europe you have to search very hard to find a shop that doesn't take (contactless) payments since various radical security improvements over the last couple of years have enforced payment fulfilment providers to replace their card readers a few times and it would be ridiculous to swap outdated technology against slightly less outdated technology without contactless payment support.

    Interestingly, in my experience, virtually all small and mid-sized retailers accept contactless payments. Only some of the larger chains, such as HD, have not offered that convenience.
    MplsP
  • Reply 6 of 8
    sunman42sunman42 Posts: 290member
    ssfe11 said:
    Finally for Home Depot! Absolutely luv Apple Pay!

    Not long before Apple Pay went live, Home Depot suffered what was for its time an enormous data breach, spilling information from magnetic strips on credit cards (which include names, addresses, dates of birth, and account numbers — everything identity thieves needed to pose as cardholders). I remember trying, on a credit card’s discussion forum, how Apple Pay would prevent spillage of such information, because (1) no unhashed information was passed in the transaction, and (2) no information at all would be communicated to the merchant (where it could eventually be stolen), other than that the issuing bank had approved payment. Walmart, of course, persists in trying to make money off its customers personal information, an antiquated and (to judge by the most recent  antitrust rulings against Alphabet) increasingly illegal business strategy.

  • Reply 7 of 8
    MplsPMplsP Posts: 4,004member
    Well, I'm one customer that has been eschewing Home Depot in favor of Lowes due to their lack of Apple Pay support, so I'll take my infinitesimal bit of credit for this!
    yyzguy said:
    mike1 said:
    It's worth noting that Home Depot did not accept any type of contactless payment options. It wasn't only Apple Pay that wasn't available.
    Exactly!  I rarely use Apple Pay because I find tap to pay more convenient.   I’m a regular Home Depot shopper and hoping the machines that accept Apple Pay will also work with regular RFID cards.   I’ll certainly use Apple Pay if needed 
    Curious how you find tap to pay more convenient? I just wave my watch over the machine and I'm done. If I don't want to use my watch, using my phone is still more convenient that pulling out my wallet, opening it up and grabbing a credit card. Of course that's even more inconvenient now that I never carry my wallet with me!
    gregoriusmForumPost
  • Reply 8 of 8
    rtalatirtalati Posts: 5member
    The most frustrating thing about Home Depot is that a large number of their stores were the first to accept NFC / ApplePay….and then they intentionally disabled it.  
    stompy
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