It doesn’t happen that often, but once in a while I find myself in the wild without my wallet and really need to buy something. Because I absolutely never leave the house without my iPhone, I’ve gotten used to finding the nearest Walgreens, or Whole Foods, or Petco – or some other retailer that accepts Apple Pay – in order to buy what I need. And most of the time I can get by.
But what about independent merchants, the kind that aren’t big enough to partner with Apple? Maybe it’s my favorite cheese vendor at the farmers market, or a repair technician, or the neighborhood coffee shop. Maybe I just want to go jogging wearing my Apple Watch and stop at a street fair and buy a big-ass painting of the Golden Gate Bridge. I’m obviously not going to have my purse with me, right? The kind, elderly watercolor painter has no way to take my money via Apple Pay, right?
That’s all about to change. I got a chance to try out PayAnywhere’s new Apple Pay-supported card reader at San Francisco’s SOMA StrEat Food Park to compare buying street truck chicken quesadillas to my Apple Pay experience at larger retailers.
The new PayAnywhere Mobile reader accepts Apple Pay plus other contactless NFC payments, traditional magnetic stripe credit cards and is EMV-capable. PayAnywhere is also offering merchants $5,000 free in Apple Pay transaction processing with a new PayAnywhere account. The readers will sell exclusively in Apple Stores and at apple.com for $39.95 starting in September.