H-E-B caves to the pressure and begins rolling out Apple Pay to all stores

After kicking off a pilot program in July, H-E-B has announced that it will roll out support for tap-to-pay platforms like Apple Pay to all of its locations. H-E-B operates over 300 locations across Texas, making it one of the largest grocery store chains in the state.

H-E-B has been one of the biggest Apple Pay holdouts. In July, however, the company signaled a potential change in strategy after kicking off a pilot program at one of its Central Market locations in Dallas.

In a press release this week, H-E-B says that it is now beginning a “phased rollout” to bring support to Apple Pay to all of its stores. The rollout will begin at stores in the San Antonio area and gradually expand to locations across the rest of Texas:

Starting Oct. 7, H-E-B will begin its phased rollout, allowing customers to make purchases using digital tap-to-pay services such as Apple Pay, Samsung Pay, and Google Pay at its flagship stores. During the phased rollout, H-E-B will launch tap to pay region by region and the service will become available at groups of stores each day throughout the month. The service will first become available at H-E-B stores in the San Antonio area, where it will take about a week to launch at every location in the region. Throughout the month, the retailer will continue to roll out the service to all other H-E-B stores across Texas, as well as Mi Tienda stores in Houston.

H-E-B says that tap-to-pay support will be available at cash registers, self-checkout lanes, and H-E-B brand restaurants and pharmacy locations. Tap-to-pay will not be available at H-E-B fuel pumps, but will be available at fuel station payment windows.

As part of the announcement, H-E-B VP Ashwin Nathan acknowledges that support for contactless platforms like Apple Pay “has been one of the most requested services” from customers.

Walmart remains the biggest Apple Pay holdout, and seemingly has no plans to change its approach. Kroger, the largest supermarket chain in the United States, caved to the pressure and launched Apple Pay support at its stores last year. 

Another major Apple Pay holdout is Home Depot, which has shown no signs of adopting the mobile payment platform despite support from its biggest competitor, Lowe’s. 

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