Do their readers do contactless payment at all? Apple/Google Pay are just presenting your phone as a contactless payment card so it should work anywhere a physical card can be used that way.
US-based here...
My local HD does NOT do contactless of any variety. It's chip or swipe.
Same for my local Thai food carry-out.
I would have sworn my local bicycle shop did contactless for cards only (but not devices) - I'll have to test that next time I'm there. It could just be that the pub/cafe side has a contactless reader but the retail side is chip/swipe-only (effectily two businesses in the same space and owned by the same person).
I actually ran into exactly this when I tried to make a return to Target after losing my receipt. I had replaced my phone and the card number changed. Luckily for random reasons I had my old phone laying around still and was able to come back and return with that.
Having done a receipt based return vs. dozens of card based returns at Home Depot, the staff time involved is orders of magnitude more so I understand why they would turn NFC off. Tracking may be part of this consideration too, but I’d speculate it’s secondary.