How Tap to Pay on iPhone Is Changing Retail Payments
Posted by Amanda McLaughlin on Sep 13, 2022
Deliver modern, mobile-first shopping experiences that delight your customers. Drive ROI back to your business across all customer touchpoints—in-store, online, and on mobile. Book a time with our team to learn how we can help transform your business with our omnichannel solutions.
*Privacy Notice: By hitting "Submit," I acknowledge receipt of the NewStore Privacy Policy.
There have been seismic shifts in the payments space in recent years. It’s an industry that’s often in flux as consumer behavior evolves and technology sees innovation.
When it comes to retail payments specifically, there are many trends to watch. However, all signals point to contactless digital payments becoming the leading way for consumers to pay. In fact, a recent study found that 73% of consumers prefer to pay in-store the same way they pay online. That means easy, secure, and convenient transactions, no exceptions.
While contactless payments aren’t new, what is new is the ability for retail brands to accept them without the need for a payment terminal or extra hardware. That’s only possible with Tap to Pay on iPhone, a new capability from Apple now available to U.S. merchants.
In this article, learn more about Tap to Pay on iPhone, including how the NewStore mobile point-of-sale (POS) is now supercharged with this feature. We’ll also look at what this means for the future of retail payments.
Tap to Pay on iPhone empowers retail brands to use an iPhone to accept contactless payments — from physical debit and credit cards to Apple Pay and other digital wallets — without the need for payment terminals or extra hardware. Integrated into iOS apps like the NewStore mobile POS, it makes it possible to unlock simple and seamless checkout experiences.
As a consumer device, there is almost nothing the iPhone can’t do. It is so feature-rich that you can get around any city without anything else in your pocket. The same can now be said for the iPhone as a retail solution. The in-store tech stack collapses down into a single, intuitive device: the iPhone — which most store associates already use everyday (and love).
Here are some of the specific benefits of Tap to Pay on iPhone for retail brands.
The retail associate job is no longer just about selling goods or services. Of course, that’s still part of the gig. But with consumers expecting personalized experiences and new technologies being introduced to meet those demands, the job isn’t what it once was. As a result, 82% of sales associates report feeling increased levels of stress and burnout.
With Tap to Pay on iPhone on a mobile POS, sales associates will only have to learn one (very simple) solution. Most likely, they already know how to use an iPhone (currently, there are more than 113 million iPhone users in the U.S.), so there actually isn’t much training required. The POS workflow guides you all the way from the consumer’s cart to the payment “done” screen. It’s no more than a few logical taps.
The fact that the entire checkout experience is right on an iPhone means retail brands can turn any location into a point of sale. NewStore customer Outdoor Voices did just that at a recent pop-up event in Austin, Texas. All the brand’s associates had to do was show up with a few iPhone devices and they were off transacting in the park. The brand’s VP of Technology said it was “incredibly easy to set up” and that they’d be using it at other pop-ups in the future.
Combined with a mobile POS, Tap to Pay on iPhone brings down the four walls of the store. Brands can easily bring their product and services to wherever the customer is.
Mobile checkout of any kind means store associates can complete transactions without ever leaving the customer’s side. Like in the above pop-up example, they can bring the point of sale to the shopper, wherever they may be. This makes for a convenient buying experience since customers don’t have to wait in lines, which most, if not all, dread doing.
Tap to Pay on iPhone adds even more simplicity and convenience to the mobile checkout experience. Wireless credit card readers are prone to connectivity and other issues. Associates often have to run the transaction again. And sometimes again after that. When the mobile POS manages the end-to-end transaction process, the associate doesn’t have to worry about failing payment terminals or frustrated customers.
Another point of differentiation of Tap to Pay on iPhone is, of course, the touch-free nature of the experience. Contactless payments was a trend accelerated by the pandemic, but people today still care deeply about hygiene and personal space. With Tap to Pay on iPhone, consumers don’t need to handle anything but their own card or device. Not even a receipt, which can be emailed to them.
Traditional check out counters, with a myriad of hardware and terminals, keep associates tethered throughout their shift. Apple was actually one of the first to unleash their associates and empower them with mobile checkout. Even though its stores are packed with people, shoppers can always find someone to check them out. It’s one of their secrets to drive high sales per square footage. But with Tap to Pay on iPhone and the NewStore mobile POS, any retail brand can make this their reality.
NewStore customer Burton is a good example of this. Its store guides have been able to shorten the payment processing time by as much as 30% with Tap to Pay on iPhone. Seconds add up during peak times, so saving time allows them to help more customers.
When you free associates from the cash wrap, you enable them to sell more. Well, mobile checkout just got supercharged with Tap to Pay on iPhone, and now you can sell more, faster.
There are a lot of interesting things happening in payments. The QR code, although invented decades ago, is back in the spotlight as a payment method thanks to the pandemic. Scan to pay is once again popular because it gives the shopper autonomy over how they pay. Another burgeoning payment method is buy now pay later (BNPL). It’s estimated that as much as $10 billion in e-commerce revenue has passed through BNPL providers.
Really, the list of trends goes on. But when thinking about the future of payments and how they are driving retail innovation, we have to look at how Tap to Pay on iPhone is built on near-field communication (NFC) technology. NFC allows Apple to securely authenticate and complete a purchase. But it represents so much more for retail brands than just payments.
Here are a few examples of where we see it going.
In the future, once the transaction is complete with Tap to Pay on iPhone, shoppers can be prompted on their device to opt-in to the brand’s loyalty program. This would be an easy way to not only capture customer information at the point of sale, but also offer customers discounts and incentives. Additionally, if the brand has a mobile shopping app, after checkout is complete the customer can be shown a quick way to download it. This would nicely link their recent purchase to their account.
So, retail payments up until now have just been payments. Now with NFC technology like Tap to Pay on iPhone, payments intuitively intersect with loyalty and customer engagement, giving brands a new way to grow their businesses.
Tap to Pay on iPhone is a game changer for retail. It will take years for a legacy POS to be able to accommodate this feature or any other emerging payment method. The NewStore mobile POS was built tap to pay ready. In fact, our vision from day one has been to enable retail brands to run their stores right on an iPhone. No extra hardware needed.
If you’d like to offer your customers a contactless and omnichannel shopping experience, reach out to learn how we can help.
