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Trader Joe’s begins accepting Apple Pay at select retail locations

Last month, Apple added 10 new retailers to its Apple Pay website, which brought the total to 68 merchants and more than 700,000 payment terminals. Now, it appears that popular grocery chain Trader Joe’s is preparing to accept Apple Pay in its more than 400 retail locations.

The popular grocery chain has started outfitting its checkout lanes with new VeriFone touchscreen machines over the recent months and with those new machines comes support for wireless payments with Apple Pay. While Trader Joe’s is not yet listed on Apple’s website, several users have reported success in paying with Apple’s payment service.

Availability of Apple Pay support in Trader Joe’s appears to vary by specific location, with some stores already supporting the technology, others saying it’s coming soon, and others unaware of any plans to add support.

Apple Pay is officially supported at 78 merchants and various others, including grocery stores, clothing retailers, and sports arenas. Trader Joe’s joins retailers like Meijer and Acme. It was also announced earlier this month that Best Buy will introduce to Apple Pay support to its retail locations later this year.

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Comments

  1. yuniverse7 - 9 years ago

    my location near seattle has replaced their terminal with the said Verifone units, but the workers did now know whether ApplePay would be available in the future. Perhaps it already is… I should try it out next time.

    • fattym77 - 9 years ago

      Um, if they accept NFC, the accept Apple Pay.

      • mobileseeks - 9 years ago

        Untrue. CVS has NFC terminals but they do not accept ApplePay.

  2. spiralynth - 9 years ago

    I was at a Trader Joe’s in Nor Cal last week and told the cashier I’d heard mumblings about them accepting Apple Pay. I had to repeat “Apple Pay” very slowly to her before she replied “I have no idea what that is”. I proceeded to waive my watch at the terminal a few times before I concluded that they, indeed, did not accept Apple Pay.

    What was most baffling to me though (still is) was how a relatively attractive, sociable, fashionable, blonde, American, mid-20s, cashier, that otherwise looked to be bright and in tune with the times had absolutely no clue what Apple Pay was. And judging by the look on her face while I swung my watch around like a fool, she had no clue what an Apple Watch was either. I’m really amazed by that. I mean … you’ve never ever heard of/seen either of these things, even once?

    • standardpull - 9 years ago

      Apple Pay is well known to almost all industry professionals – Apple Pay is well known to industry pros even if they work within a corporation that for financial, technology, or contractual reasons have decided to not deploy Apple Pay at this time.

      And so I also find it shocking that a cashier, of all people, would be unfamiliar with advances within the payment processing ecosystem.

      Clearly the cashier in question is dis-interested in her own industry choice – she has failed to do any kind of off-hours learning (reading trade journals, for example). And Trader Joe’s has failed to train AND constantly assess its employees. How did she ever get hired? Don’t they evaluate their prospective employees before they hire them?

      Of course, it doesn’t all add up. As you say, she is relatively attractive, sociable, fashionable, blonde, American, mid-20s, that looked to be bright and in tune with the times. It wasn’t like she was unfashionable, plain, dark haired, non-American that wouldn’t be expected to know much of anything.

      Life is so confusing.

    • I can guarantee that the majority of folk in the US, and around the world, will have no idea what Apple Pay is, would never of heard of an Apple Watch & have never heard of Tim Cook. Just because YOU know about something doesn’t mean everybody else is going to know about it. Contrary to what you might believe, the lives of 7.5 billion people don’t revolve around the things you are interested in and if you think it does then sorry you are deluded.

      • spiralynth - 9 years ago

        @twopantiesinabunch

        Look, no one is saying that she has to be interested in it or have to profess great knowledge about it. Even my grandma has heard of Apple Pay and Apple Watch. Why? Because she watches TV and surf the net. Apple has been running many commercials and ads on both offerings for 9 months now. The chances of somebody having “having never ever heard of/seen either of these things even once” is kinda surprised

        I’m not admonishing or kicking this cashier for not having heard of it, I’m simply amazed by that. Maybe fascinated is a better word. The reason described her is because the image she portrays is not of some old, out of touch recluse. S

      • spiralynth - 9 years ago

        Let’s try that again. Thanks WordPress for your robust system that allows me to edit stuff. Yippee!

        @twopantiesinabunch

        Look, no one is saying that she has to be interested in it or have to profess great knowledge about it. Apple and several banks have been running countless commercials and ads on both offerings over the past 9 months now. Even my grandma has heard of Apple Pay and Apple Watch. Why? Because she watches TV and surfs the net. Because her bank website and statements include ads stating “now accepting Apple Pay”. Pretty difficult to miss if you watch TV, surf the net or hold a bank account or interact with young people.

        The reason I described this woman is because the image she portrays is not of some old, out of touch recluse. This girl looked like a typical, active, socially aware young woman here in the Bay Area, in the heart of Silicon Valley no less, and who no doubt has regular encounters (likely unbeknownst to her) with Apple, Google, Facebook, Tesla and countless other tech industry employees, particularly given the location of the store she works at (not to mention she’s a person who interacts with people offering her virtually every imaginable form of payment hundreds of times per day).

        So, when you add all that up, the chances of someone that fits her profile meeting the extremely low threshold of “having never ever heard of/seen either of these things even once” is kinda surprising to me. I’m not admonishing or knocking her for it, I’m simply amazed by it. Maybe “fascinated” would be a better word.

        And to think I was the one who broke her virginity on both of those things … at once … within seconds. I’m going to take some pride in that.

      • Odys (@twittester10) - 9 years ago

        Judging by your name – your sole purpose in life is to troll – how can you possibly guarantee your assertions?

Author

Avatar for Chance Miller Chance Miller

Chance is an editor for the entire 9to5 network and covers the latest Apple news for 9to5Mac.

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