The divides between the ways people pay peers, workers and businesses are breaking down, as consumers are increasingly able to use the payment options with which they feel most comfortable wherever they may be. Giant Eagle, a grocery chain that operates 474 stores throughout Pennsylvania, West Virginia, Ohio, Maryland and Indiana, announced on Friday (Aug. 13) that it is becoming the first United States grocery and convenience chain to take PayPal and its peer-to-peer (P2P) payments platform Venmo in stores. Included in this rollout are Giant Eagle brand supermarkets and the company’s over 200 GetGo convenience store locations.
“We are thrilled to be the first supermarket and convenience chain in the country to accept PayPal and Venmo in our stores,” Graham Watkins, the chain’s EVP of retail innovation and business development, said in a statement. “This implementation is particularly exciting, as it enables Giant Eagle and GetGo customers to use the digital payment methods that they already enjoy in the places where they transact most frequently.”
PYMNTS data from the study The Bring-It-To-Me Economy: How Online Marketplaces And Aggregators Drive Omnichannel Commerce, created in collaboration with Carat by Fiserv, found that a quarter of all U.S. consumers would be encouraged to shop at physical stores more if they had the ability to pay with a digital wallet that can be used at contactless point-of-sale terminals.
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Additionally, data from PYMNTS’ November 2020 Omnichannel Grocery Report found that demand for digital wallets significantly outstripped usage, with three in 10 consumers either “very” or “extremely” interested in using the payment method, compared to just 22 percent already using it.
Read more: NEW DATA: What US Consumers Want Grocery Stores To Know About How They Want To Shop And Pay
Giant Eagle’s announcement comes in partnership with branded payments solution provider Blackhawk Network. In PYMNTS’ eBook, A Decade of Digital Transformation in 12 Months, Blackhawk Network’s President and CEO Talbott Roche reflected on the dramatic rise of digital payment methods that we have experienced since the start of the pandemic.
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“This digital payment acceleration was critical to creating a customer experience that is convenient and contactless. And retailers that are leaning into this trend will be rewarded,” said Roche. “The pandemic also conditioned consumers to enjoy payments choice — a trend that will undoubtedly be here to stay. We’re all becoming more accustomed to unified commerce: the ability to pay however we want, wherever we want.”
While this move is a first for the grocery industry, a range of have already been accepting Venmo and PayPal, including Texaco, Chevron, Abercrombie & Fitch, Hollister and CVS. For PayPal, these integrations are part of the company’s broader goal to expand the use cases for its payment methods.
See also: Chevron And Texaco Apps Now Accept Venmo
Related news: Abercrombie & Fitch Adds Venmo To Mobile Apps
Frank Keller, SVP of in-store at PayPal, commented, “This expansion of PayPal and Venmo digital payments into grocery and convenience stores propels our mission to bring easy, safe payments to consumers at any point in their shopping experience.”
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