Getting ready for Apple Pay

The last month has seen significant mobile news for retailers and brands. Nordstrom is now selling product from Instagram, forever ensuring that it’s feed will link to a product page every time. 

A click on this image feeds into the product page for the pearl bracelet, $48. Not the soda. 

Apple is making a move into less affluent markets with the iPhone 5C, Boku is enabling carrier billing in the European Union, PayPal separated from eBay, and retailers are embracing mobile in-store service at a much higher rate.

The piece of mobile news that caught most retailers’ ear was the launch of Apple Pay in the US. It will be one of the easier technologies to implement, and given the market penetration of the iPhone (in the US it is 42.4 percent as of July 2014), and the mobile payment method major retailers will want to adopt.

Apple Pay appeals to customer’s sense of security because only a token is transferred to the retailer, no credit or banking information. But this does have implications for loyalty programming as no other customer information is connected with the transaction. Personalized online shopping experiences are at risk for these customers, as are loyalty rewards.

Retailers can reach out to payment terminal providers to set up their business for Apple Pay. EMV standard contactless payment (tap payment) will need to be functioning in-store. And for those brands and retailers with Apps – familiarize yourself with the Developer page for Apple Pay.

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