Apple Pay was a Black Friday flop

Apple Pay’s Black Friday was a bust. The mobile payment method was used for less than 5 per cent of all Apple-Pay eligible transactions. On the busiest of all shopping days, surely a one-tap payment with an iPhone would be the quickest and easiest way to pay?

According to a survey by InfoScout, more than five weeks after its launch, 90 per cent of iPhone 6 and 6+ users hadn’t even tried to use Apple Pay.

Just over 9 per cent of the 400 iPhone 6 wielding Black Friday shoppers surveyed have ever tried using Apple Pay, all of which preferring the experience to swiping a card. But out of those 9 per cent there was a 50-50 chance that they would use Apple Pay when shopping at a participating store on Black Friday.

To break it down – only 4.6 per cent of those surveyed who owned an Apple Pay enabled phone used the mobile payment method on Black Friday.

The largest chunk of those who did not use the service (31 per cent) was unaware that the stores they visited accepted Apple Pay. Another 25 per cent simply forgot to use it, preferring to stick with the well-known credit card transaction.

“This isn’t necessarily surprising,” InfoScout noted. “The checkout process has become habit for most, and integrating mobile payments into your purchase flow requires change to a very deeply ingrained pattern of behaviour.

In order to disrupt the “deeply ingrained pattern of behaviour”, the report noted, Apple needs to expand its advertising at each retailer’s point of sale. Right now, it only offers two small images to let people know they can pay using NFC, and only one of them has an Apple logo.

But the biggest opportunity for Apple to increase use of Apple Pay is by tackling the 90 per cent of iPhone 6 users who have yet to even try the service. Out of those eligible, 32 per cent haven’t tried Apple Pay because they aren’t familiar with how it works, and 11 per cent of those haven’t even heard of it. Nearly half of those who already own the technology need to be reached by some very educational advertising, or targeted informational outreach by the company.

As it stands, Apple Pay has only been available for five weeks, and it may take time for positive word of mouth reviews to spread. After all, mobile payments have taken some time to even consider reaching for the mainstream, and Black Friday might be too extreme a day for a change in behaviour to manifest itself.

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