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Advice for working with Apple Wallet?

6 years ago from

I have a client interested in using Apple Wallet so users can add coupons from their app to their wallet to redeem in-store.

Has anyone gone through the process? Any advice? Do users actually use the feature?

In general our design team is skeptical about whether anyone will actually use the feature if we implement it.

8 comments

  • Aaron SagrayAaron Sagray, 6 years ago

    I was on the team that built PassTools (enterprise scale pass distribution, now at Urban Airship) when Passbook was introduced. Here's some guidelines:

    • The likelihood of wallet marketing working highly depends on the type of business. It has high usage with airlines and things like gym/loyalty cards.

    • Make sure your existing scanning infrastructure and POS software can support the 2D barcodes (or Code 128) that Apple supports. Android Pay supports a wider range of barcodes. This is a deal breaker for a lot of businesses, and I think a main reason Wallet wasn't widely adopted.

    • Some customers will use it. A lot won't. Apple hasn't done a great job of marketing the Wallet product beyond Apple Pay.

    • Use the Apple-approved "Add to Wallet" badge.

    • Dynamically update the pass based on what you know about the customer, so the 10 most likely store locations are part of their pass. That way, the pass will show up on their lock screen when they are near the location (which will increase usage).

    • Customers generally don't remember that Wallet is on their phone. So cross-marketing with an app/push notifications tends to work better

    • Dynamically update passes with new offers. That way a notification will appear in some cases indicating a pass update.

    • Urban Airship has a lot of great content around Wallet marketing on their site.

    5 points
    • Saul SutcherSaul Sutcher, 6 years ago

      Aaron - Thanks for the note! Seems like the biggest reason to implement would be to take advantage of some of the dynamic offer updates etc. We'll probably move forward with a proof of concept.

      Will defintiely check out Urban Airship's resources.

      0 points
  • Petr TichyPetr Tichy, 6 years ago

    As a user, I have bought cinema tickets yesterday and added them to the Apple Wallet, then just scanned my phone at the cinema. I have also done it many times before with tickets to football games and concerts.

    I am in Melbourne, Australia. If that helps.

    1 point
  • Noah TovaresNoah Tovares, 6 years ago

    As a user, I've never found a wallet experience that I was satisfied with. While iOS has many features that get adoption through brute force (messages, widgets), this doesn't seem like one of them.

    1 point
    • Account deleted 6 years ago

      I think this is partly because the core feature itself is still a little rough. To be fair, even on the Android side of things it was the same way. They thought of these "wallets" as independent apps... but now realize it's simply a feature-set of a larger "pay"offering. This is why Google Wallet is being rolled into Android Pay, for example.

      It will get there, but it will take a little time and need to still be a little more seamless - with not just pay - but how you initiate and interact with the feature on a UX level.

      1 point
  • chris schaefer, 6 years ago

    @saul sutcher I work at Urban Airship and would be happy to talk through some use cases and answer any questions you may have regarding mobile wallet. chris.schaefer@urbanairship.com

    0 points
  • Account deleted 6 years ago

    1. Have been through the process. It definitely has value for certain applications/uses (as others have noted) - especially offers/deals/etc.

    2. I'm not sure it's the design team's place to push back on something the client is asking you to do. They have a clear directive to allow users to add coupons from their app with Wallet. I could be wrong, but it sounds like the team is dragging their feet about this because THEY don't like it/use it. That's weird to me. The goal should be to provide the best experience for the users for the client - not what the team's behavior is. Again... I could be wrong, but that's the vibe I got from the tone of the post...

    0 points
  • Todd Padwick, 6 years ago

    I use apple wallet quite a lot and so do a lot of my friends (many of whom are tradies so are not tech savvy). Its often used for event tickets such as festivals and club nights - Eventbrite for example has a download to apple wallet feature.

    I think there a few issues with Apple wallet (such as not being able to clear old tickets very easily) but for the most part its a great, simple way of storing QR code tickets/coupons.

    0 points