Apple Pay Support Rolls Out at Staples

Added to a growing list of Apple Pay supporters, Staples is now accepting the new digital payment platform at its stores nationwide, allowing users to use their iPhone 6 to buy office supplies.

Back in September when Apple announced Apple Pay, Staples was listed as one of the stores that would gain Apple Pay support in the near future. That day has finally come for iPhone 6 users, and the Staples iOS app even supports Apple Pay now, allowing customers to buy goods within the app and use Apple Pay to check out — no need to enter in a form or credit card information.

The addition of more and more stores supporting Apple Pay is a big deal, but there are still some stores who aren’t getting on board with Apple’s new payment platform, including one of the biggest stores in the world: Walmart. High credit card transaction fees is the main reason why Walmart isn’t supporting Apple Pay.

Credit card transaction fees are fees that stores are required to pay to banks when a credit card is used to buy goods at the cash register. Walmart believes these fees are too high, which is a big reason why the national retail chain is opting for CurrentC, which has payment options that have lower fees than credit card transactions.

CurrentC is a new digital payment method that will launch early next year, and it’s from a group called Merchant Customer Exchange, which consists of a handful of big retail chains, including CVS, Rite Aid, Best Buy, Lowe’s, Sears, and Target.

MCX praises its upcoming payment platform, as it links directly to users’ debit accounts, which bypasses card companies and their transaction fees. However, it’s been stated that it’s not the best solution for the consumer. The system uses QR codes that requires the user to unlock their phone, open up an app, and display a QR code that gets scanned by the pay terminal reader, whereas Apple Pay simply requires users to take out their iPhones and point it close to the NFC terminal with their finger on the Touch ID sensor.

Apple Pay was launched last month and has become the fastest-growing digital payment platform on the market so far.

Apple Pay allows you to store your credit card information on your iPhone and use it to buy stuff at any store that supports Apple Pay. The iPhone 6 has an NFC chip that allows you to tap the pay terminal at a store to instantly buy goods without swiping your credit card. Furthermore, doing this doesn’t give the store your credit card information, so you’re less susceptible to store hacks that steal credit card information, similar to the recent Home Depot and Target hacks.

Apple Pay also works with mobile shopping apps, allowing you to pay with a single touch of the Touch ID fingerprint sensor in shopping apps that support the feature.

While many of these stores that have a contract with CurrentC don’t currently support Apple Pay, it doesn’t look like there are any penalties for stores who break that exclusivity and begin offering Apple Pay. In fact, midwest grocery store Meijer accepts Apple Pay and is a part of the CurrentC program, so it leads the way for other CurrentC stores to follow.

Whether or not CVS, Rite Aid, and other partnered stores will permanently stick with CurrentC is up in the air, as the platform hasn’t even launched yet, but we wouldn’t be surprised to see the platform fail eventually and have these stores quickly switch back to Apple Pay, especially since there aren’t any penalties for companies that want to leave CurrentC and join Apple Pay.