Apple Pay is being accepted worldwide as a quick and convenient retail payment method. It’s accepted almost everywhere, making the need to go out with a wallet almost obsolete.
But what about HomeGoods? Does HomeGoods also accept Apple Pay?
Does HomeGoods Take Apple Pay?
HomeGoods does not accept Apple Pay or Google Pay as a payment method. Instead, they offer PayPal and all conventional credit/debit card options. You can also pay at HomeGoods with gift cards.
This article looks at HomeGoods payment options: what they are, how they work, and which options you can’t use at HomeGoods.
What is HomeGoods?
HomeGoods is a chain of home furnishing stores headquartered in Framingham, Massachusetts, and was founded as a small chain in 1992. It has now grown to include hundreds of locations throughout the United States. HomeGoods sells furniture, linens, cooking products, art décor, storage solutions, and other home accessories.
HomeGoods has an associated app called “The Goods,” which allows customers to see available products at store locations. The app has mixed reviews.
There are 866 HomeGoods locations in the United States as of July 2022. The state with the greatest number of HomeGoods locations in the US is California, with 97 locations. There is a similar sister company in Canada called HomeSense.
Despite common belief, HomeGoods is not owned by Walmart. HomeGoods is owned by TJX Companies and is a sister company to T.J. Maxx, Sierra Trading Post, and Marshalls (including HomeSense). The size of each store varies by location. Confusingly, TJ Maxx, Trading Post, and Marshalls all accept Apple Pay.
TJX Companies is an American multinational off-price department store corporation headquartered in Framingham, Massachusetts.
As mentioned before, TJ Maxx and the other sister companies all accept Apple Pay as one of their payment methods. Customers need an Apple Pay-enabled smartphone online and at retail stores. Apple Pay customers can receive a 2% reward on their purchases.
Read: Does HomeGoods Have Squishmallows?
What Is Apple Pay?
Apple Pay is a mobile payment service by Apple Inc. that allows users to make payments while shopping in-store or online. Customers need an Apple device to store payment methods in a digital Apple Wallet.
An Apple Wallet (formerly known as Passbook) is a digital wallet that allows users to store Wallet passes such as coupons, boarding passes, student ID cards, government ID cards, business credentials, resort passes, car keys, home keys, event tickets, public transportation passes, store cards, and more recently, credit cards, debit cards, and prepaid cards for use via Apple Pay.
How Do You Pay At HomeGoods?
Payment options available at HomeGoods (both online and in-store) include all major credit cards (American Express, Discover, Master Card, and Visa), reward cards, gift cards, and PayPal.
HomeGoods advise that orders placed with PayPal and credit card will be processed immediately. Credit Card payments for larger orders may require confirmation that the shipping address is verified with the cardholder.
What Is The HomeGoods App?
The HomeGoods App is called The Goods and is available for free download from Apple Store and Google Play. The app allows shoppers to browse the store from their phones and preview newly arrived goods.
Customers can use the app to shop and pay online and manage rewards either online or in-store. Although customers give very positive reviews of shopping with HomeGoods in-store, the app version of shopping does not receive the same positive feedback.
Read: Does Planet Fitness Accept Apple Pay?
Why Do Some Stores Not Accept Apple Pay?
The Investopedia article, Apple Pay vs. Google Pay: How They Work by Karthik Raghavan (April 27, 2022) and reviewed by Marguerita Cheng states that Apple Pay and Google Pay are both widely accepted mobile payment systems.
Observations are that Apple Pay may be to be easier to use, but Google has more features, and while Google acts as an intermediary and stores your card details on its servers, Apple has explicitly declared that it will never track your transactions.
Apple Pay was introduced in 2014. Google Pay was introduced in 2018, replacing Google Wallet, which made its debut in 2011.
Both Google Pay and Apple Pay can enable shoppers to make online purchases straight from an app or website. The entire checkout process is handled automatically with pre-filled defaults, only requiring a PIN or Touch ID verification to complete the transaction.
The article states that ‘the most significant breakthrough that mobile payment systems offer is in their security, and here Apple and Google both incorporate some pretty nifty tricks.’
Significant is Apple’s declaration that it will never track your transactions. It won’t even store your card details on its servers or your devices. All Apple does is transmit your card to the bank, authenticate it with the bank, and receive and store the DAN that the bank sends back.
This means that Apple positions itself as a payment medium alone. This means that although fingerprint scan security and the ability to remotely disable the phone offer solid protection if someone gets access to your Apply Pay phone, you have to take up the issue with your bank, not Apple.
This approach means that Apple must negotiate deals with banks and get them to sign up for its service, a task that has limited the number of cards that can be used with Apple Pay.
The fact that they don’t track transactions gives Apple no way to monetize the user, and therefore, Apple charges a per-transaction fee to the banks that it partners with.
When Apple Pay and Google Pay first came out, there were several major retailers that refused to accept them.
A consortium of vendors known as the Merchant Customer Exchange (Rite Aid (RAD), CVS (CVS), and Walmart (WMT) tried to set up a competing alternative called CurrentC, which ultimately failed.
Today Rite Aid and CVS both accept Apple Pay and Google Pay. Walmart continues to reject the system, instead offering its own system called Walmart Pay, which functions similarly to Google Pay.
Summary
HomeGoods does not offer Apple Pay as a payment option, and while the company clearly lists their available payment methods, they don’t include an explanation for the payment options they don’t offer.
The history of Apple Pay (and Google Pay) is complex, and it still cannot be assumed that even the larger store chains will offer them.
However, all retail stores, including HomeGoods, continue to offer the full range of familiar payment methods.