Kohl's becomes first Apple Pay retailer to link rewards, store cards in one transaction
Department store chain Kohl's on Wednesday announced that Apple Pay users can now pay with a Kohl's Charge card and earn Yes2You Rewards points at the same, making it the first Apple Pay retailer to combine store card payments and rewards in a single-tap transaction.
About 250 Kohl's stores currently support the option, which should be available in all locations by the end of the month, the company said. The system will work automatically so long as a person has both their Charge and Yes2You cards linked to Apple Pay.
In October 2015, Kohl's became the first retailer to have an Apple Pay-enabled store card. Since then, in fact, only one other chain has come onboard in this respect, though JCPenney may follow suit.
Merchant support in general has become the weakest link for Apple Pay in the U.S. While virtually every bank of note in the country is participating, many retailers aren't accepting payments. Several that have promised support for months or years -- like Anthropologie, Marriott, and Forever 21 -- still haven't made the transition.
Apple has promised that more major chains such as Au Bon Pain and Chick-fil-A will add support later this year.
About 250 Kohl's stores currently support the option, which should be available in all locations by the end of the month, the company said. The system will work automatically so long as a person has both their Charge and Yes2You cards linked to Apple Pay.
In October 2015, Kohl's became the first retailer to have an Apple Pay-enabled store card. Since then, in fact, only one other chain has come onboard in this respect, though JCPenney may follow suit.
Merchant support in general has become the weakest link for Apple Pay in the U.S. While virtually every bank of note in the country is participating, many retailers aren't accepting payments. Several that have promised support for months or years -- like Anthropologie, Marriott, and Forever 21 -- still haven't made the transition.
Apple has promised that more major chains such as Au Bon Pain and Chick-fil-A will add support later this year.
Comments
Further, Walmart and other retailers dislike credit cards like Visa. They are trying to support competing methods of payment.
Quote from Bernie Sanders:
If there's ever been a time ripe for a third-party option it's now. There is no good choice if it's between Clinton and Trump IMHO. Neither one is trusted nor respected by most folks according to polls but very sadly I don't see anyone jumping into the fray as a serious contender. Hopefully the other two legs of our government, Congress and the Courts, can keep the damage either one brings with them to a minimum just as the Founding Fathers intended.
My apologies for the distraction. Carry on with the thread topic.
If you want them to have that information, then you go tell them; leave me alone.
More merchants will end up accepting it anyway, perhaps holding their noses, but it's better for them to get the sales than biting their noses off for spite. And they know it.
The older I get, the more of a luddite I get. The less of me that is on the internet the better.
But as others have said, merchants don't need individual spending habits, all they have to do is mine the (total) sales they make to know what their shoppers, as a general populous, purchase. Hard to see the forest when you are focused on a blade of grass.
Bottom line, the reason its slow to be adopted is merchants don't want the expense of upgrading their POSTs for NFC, or the fee charge from their credit service activating that feature on the backend. It has very little to do with Apple's data sharing policies, that is just merchants smoke screen.
This is also a good way for merchant to collect data. Without Apple braking its privacy rules, and some day, hopefully Apple can get those receipt to me electronically as well.
ApplePay does not send anything but a token and the total charges to the CC issuer and receives an accept or decline -- Apple has no knowledge of what you buy or what you pay.