LAKE JACKSON, Texas -- Several convenience retailers have taken a bite of the Apple as it were. QuikTrip, Sheetz and Buc-ee’s are now reportedly accepting the technology company’s form of mobile payment, Apple Pay.
In the meantime, several Wal-Mart stores in Canada have reportedly stopped taking Visa credit cards, as part of its public moves to negotiate lower interchange fees.
New Ways to Pay
The 32-store Buc-ee’s based in Lake Jackson, Texas, is the most recent convenience chain to announce taking two forms of mobile payment, Samsung Pay and Apple Pay, giving word via its Twitter page. Tulsa, Okla.-based QuikTrip and Altoona, Pa.-based Sheetz both accept Apple Pay, according to a report from MacRumors.com.
In the past, Sheetz and QuikTrip have backed the retailer-led, mobile-payment effort from MCX, in opposition to Apple Pay, which works in conjunction with Foster City, Calif.-based Visa and other major credit cards. The Waltham, Mass.-based MCX effort appears in limbo, struggling to go to market with a solid offer. The MacRumors website said Sheetz has not publicly announced that it accepts Apple Pay, but the website said a Twitter user paid with Apple Pay at a Sheetz store near the Raleigh-Durham International Airport. The report said QuikTrip started accepting Apple Pay in February.
Buc-ee’s, Sheetz and QuikTrip did not reply to requests for comment.
Vetoing Visa
Meanwhile, Walmart Canada has stopped taking Visa cards at several locations with plans for all 370 stores to follow suit, according to a report from Digital Transaction News. The Bentonville, Ark.-based retail chain failed to reach a deal with the card network over what it called “unacceptably high” fees.
Wal-Mart still takes Visa in the United States and the report quotes a Wal-Mart spokesperson as being “optimistic that we will reach an agreement with Visa.”
Visa fired back asking that consumers consider taking their business elsewhere. “Until an agreement can be reached in this commercial dispute, we encourage shoppers to use their cards at the more than 5,200 stores in Thunder Bay [Canada] that accept Visa,” Digital Transaction News said, quoting a Visa spokesperson. Visa “remains committed to doing everything reasonable” to ensure its cards can be used at Wal-Mart stores, the spokesperson said, and claimed that Wal-Mart pays one of the lowest interchange rates of any merchant in the country.
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