The news: Tap to pay is coming to in-store checkout at select Walmart and Sam’s Club locations starting August 24, per a press release. 

• Shoppers can now check out via card, phone, or smartwatch. 
• Members can now also add their Walmart, Sam’s Club, and OnePay credit cards to mobile wallets.

All stores should accept tap to pay by year’s end, with gas stations to follow by mid-2027.

Why this matters: Walmart is finally caving to US consumers’ payment preferences.

• Digital wallets made up 17% of POS payment value in the US last year, per Global Payments’ Global Payments Report.  
• Digital wallet value is projected to grow at 11% CAGR from 2025 to 2030, or four times the rate of POS growth overall.
• And 53% of consumers cited tapping to pay with a card, phone, or smart watch as their most preferred payment method, per an S&P Global survey.  

Why the wait? Walmart has tried to push consumers to use its in-house payments options.

• If they didn’t want to use a physical card, customers could scan a QR code to check out with the OnePay app or Walmart Pay in the Walmart app.
• Scan & Go lets consumers scan their items with their phone while shopping and check out on their mobile device.

But Walmart can’t fight friction: QR codes are much clumsier than tapping a card, phone, or watch. And while not accepting tap to pay thwarted Google and Apple Pay’s influence at Walmart’s POS, consumer irritation with limited contactless options likely risked losing their loyalty to other retailers. 

This could also be a sign that Walmart and OnePay plan to enable tap to pay in the OnePay wallet to make it easier to use in person.

OnePay did not respond to a request for comment. 

Implication for retailers: Priming consumers to use in-house payment solutions should be driven by incentives rather than a lack of choice. 

Because most digital wallets in the US are funded via cards, retailers should enhance their co-brand cards’ incentives linked to digital wallets to gain spend.

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