Payment Options

Walmart announced on Friday it will finally accept Apple Pay, Google Pay, and other tap-to-pay methods at its U.S. stores after holding out for over a decade, reports Yahoo Finance. Starting this past Monday, Aug. 24, Walmart and Sam's Club rolled out tap-to-pay options at select locations, allowing shoppers to pay with contactless cards, smartphones,…

In this episode of Total Retail Tech Insights, Editor-in-Chief Joe Keenan interviews Sarah Kositzke, global insights director at Blackhawk Network (BHN), the world’s largest network of gift cards and branded payment solutions. Listen in as Kositzke provides an overview of BHN and her role (1:15), current gift card market trends (3:10), and the recently released…

Buy Now Pay Later (BNPL) has a customer problem — and merchants play a bigger role than they may realize. According to The Motley Fool's 2025 Buy Now, Pay Later Trends Study, roughly one in four Americans regret using BNPL, and 29 percent have made late payments. A growing number of shoppers are juggling multiple…

In this episode of Total Retail Tech Insights, Editor-in-Chief Joe Keenan speaks with Traci Bower, senior vice president of revenue at Sezzle, a forward-thinking fintech company committed to financially empowering the next generation through its purpose-driven payment platform. Listen in as Bower shares the unique career path that led to her current leadership role at…

Buy now, pay later (BNPL) has quickly become one of the most attractive offerings for new customers and essential to enhancing the overall customer experience. Meeting shoppers where they stand financially in response to rising insecurity is a good thing for retailers. That shouldn’t change. However, late payments on these loans are increasing and brands…

Retailers spend years and millions building loyalty programs, reward ecosystems and promotional engines. But what happens when that value sits unused — forgotten in an app, buried in an inbox, expired before it was ever spent? The problem isn't consumer apathy. It's a system that was never designed for how people actually manage their money.…

Artificial intelligence is already reshaping retail payments in practical ways. The impact is not theoretical. It is visible in how transactions are approved, how devices operate, and how customers move through the buying journey. The biggest structural change is in real-time decisioning. Retailers rely on fast, consistent payment flows, and friction at checkout directly affects…

Retailers have spent the last decade obsessing over conversion rates, checkout optimization, and reducing friction for human buyers. However, a new customer has quietly entered the market, one that doesn’t browse the way humans do, doesn’t type into forms, and doesn’t tolerate broken workflows. Who are they? Artificial intelligence agents. According to Sean Neville, cofounder…

Payments innovation is no longer about simply adopting artificial intelligence. It’s about pairing intelligent systems with human-in-the-loop accountability so that compliance, context and ethics evolve as quickly as the technology itself. In 2025, AI reshaped payments. In 2026, it will redefine them. Retailers, payment service providers, and the platforms that support them are entering a…

January often means merchants can finally exhale after the holiday sprint. Demand has normalized, but something feels off. The register was busy. Sales looked good. So why does the bank account tell a different story? If this sounds familiar, you're not alone (and you're not bad at business). You're just experiencing something most small merchants…