Apple Pay is an online, virtual e-commerce wallet service that was implemented in 2014, which allows individuals with Apple products to engage in transactions at both the retail and online space. In the in-person, brick-and-mortar transactions, individuals bring their Apple product, such as the iPhone or Apple-Watch to the cash register and verify their information with a Touch ID sensor and a double-click on their devices for final confirmation. Meanwhile, through e-commerce transactions, individuals only have to use Touch ID sensors to verify information at the online checkout on a browser. 

Apple Pay brings numerous benefits to a business, who is engaging in the e-commerce space. 

See the Wiki entry: Apple Pay – Wikipedia

Ubiquity

Apple Pay is gaining a lot of traction and awareness online. Popular ecommerce websites such as Uber, Groupon, Fandango, Grubhub all accept Apple Pay as the mode of payment, so you are not venturing into new territory by incorporating this feature into your website. 

According to a report by Statista, Apple Pay has about 507 million users worldwide around September 2020 and about 1 billion iPhone users in January 2021, so there is a lot of market potential and a lot of reach towards audience members who utilize this service. 

Easy Adoption

It is a very stress-free process for your customers to input their credit card information into the Apple Pay system. 

If your customer wants to add a credit card into the Apple Pay system, it is a simple, straightforward, seamless process. They can add their Visa, MasterCard or American Express credit card through iTunes or simply take a picture of the credit card on their phone.

Improved Security 

Apple Pay is a very secure digital wallet, because you need to authenticate yourself with either a Touch ID, Face ID, or passcode at the point of purchase. Also, you would not be able to access the customer’s credit card numbers, so their personal information would not be leaked out or released by the merchants. 

Convenience

The purpose of Apple Pay is for users to store their credit card information in the app, so that the next time they perform a transaction, it would be a much more convenient, efficient and fast checkout process, which could signal a lower bounce rate and possibly a higher conversion rate for your website. 

5. Higher customer satisfaction

By incorporating a very user-friendly system in the checkout process, your customers may be happier with an easier checkout process and would be more likely to return back to the website to purchase more because of Apple Pay’s convenient checkout experience.

Implementing Apple Pay as a Merchant

Integrating Apple Pay is easier said than done.

See their developer’s documentation here: Apple Pay on the Web | Apple Developer Documentation

The following represents the advised steps to implement:

1. Setup and Pay for an Apple Developer Account
2. You have to create an Apple ID and fill out the personal information on the page
3. You need to go and click on iTunes Connect: Users & Roles, and then click on Sandbox Testers, and create a special Sandbox Account
4. Go to Settings and then click on iCloud to your Sandbox account
5. Add a Sandbox cards to your Sandbox account on phone
6. Go to Wallet & Apple Pay on your Settings and input your credit card information
7. Create an Apple Pay SSL/TLS Merchant Certificate
8. Create a server to host our website
   1. This is important in order to process Apple Pay transactions and payments
9. Connect the server to your website and log on server
10. Setup authentication between your server and Apple
11. Apply for a merchant account that supports Apple Pay
12. Create and exchange Processor Certificates between your Merchant, Apple and yourself.

As you can see, the Apple Pay website is a lot of loops and juggling between different software programs.

Implementing Apple Pay with OpenPath

OpenPath overcomes this very complicated and long, arduous process by streamlining the entire procedure, having an Apple Pay integration that you can add through an account on the OpenPath website. 

For further information to implement Apple Pay, please contact sales@openpath.io