Hacker News Reader

Comment by embedding-shape | Hacker News Reader

> Now I've got to slowly type in my phone number for Prime

Haven't the (big) supermarkets in the US adopted the whole "scan and go" thing that lots of countries in Europe have had for a long time? (maybe more than a decade at this point I think)

When I go to the supermarket, right after the entrance, I pick up a scanner, then as I pick stuff, I scan them and pack them. Then when I'm done, you scan a code, give back the scanner, take your stuff and leave. Kind of assumed this was done in the US first and then spread here, but maybe it started here? Not sure.

View on HN

Kroger (Ralph's, etc.) allows you to do tap and pay, or to scan and pay (using a QR code in the app tied to your customer profile). These work at the regular cashiers and in self-checkout.

Home Depot has also allowed this for lower-value items for several years.

To be fair with scan & go you still have to scan your membership card which would be the equivalent of typing in your phone number.

But most retail tech in the US is suuuuper backwards. They were still signing credit card receipts until very recently. The way you pay for petrol/gas is bonkers.

> The way you pay for petrol/gas is bonkers.

Wait, what do you mean?

This is how it works for us: I go to the gas station, the pumps are locked by default, I await eye-contact with the person inside, wave at them, they unlock the pump, I pump the petrol, then I go in and pay.

I'm guessing it's radically different than that and involves signing papers somehow? Almost afraid to ask.

I only did it once in America and this was some years ago so maybe it's changed... but basically you have to somehow pay in advance. How do you do that without knowing how much petrol you'll need? Very good question! If I recall I basically overpaid and they refunded me or something like that. Crazy.

As an American, I always put my card into the pump itself and then fill up. No guessing, no change, no even going inside for a normal visit.

One time I went inside to buy a can to fill up, and I also paid upfront for a gallon, which made the pump cut off automatically.

I've never tried to pay for an unknown amount of gas with cash, and never felt any need to.

Thankfully no signatures involved. You roll up, swipe/dip/tap your card in a reader on the gas pump, enter your postal code (archaic security measure from the pre-chip card era), wait a few moments for the electronic authorization (they pre-authorize an amount in the $75-150 range), then pump, and leave.

If you are paying cash, you generally have to go inside before pumping and prepay, and then go back inside afterwards to get your change, if applicable.

That used to be typical in the US as well. I think that when pay-at-the-pump became the norm (using a card), prepayment became expected even when paying with cash inside, at around the same time. I expect there are some gas stations here and there in the US that still operate the way you describe though.

An increasing number of gas stations are completely unattended though — the attached store might close overnight but the pumps are still usable.

> The way you pay for petrol/gas is bonkers.

That needs to be past tense. At most gas stations now you can just tap your credit card and start pumping. Unless you’re in a state like New Jersey, which still has a law that an employee has to pump for you.

Despite others saying that they have never seen it, Meijer stores have this, except instead of a store scanner you use your phone with an app. There are other reasons too, but this is a big part of why my family shops at Meijer compared every other store near us.

scan & go is in most grocery stores but I almost never see anyone using it.

Haha no. US commerce improvements tend to trail EU by a decade.

We just got tap to pay a couple of years ago. People still pass bits of paper with signatures on them to pay each other for stuff.

> We just got tap to pay a couple of years ago

You mean NFC payments? :| Oh, and checks too? I guess things were very different than my assumption, interesting thing to have learned today. Thanks!

I mean the physical credit cards didn’t have tap to pay most of the time until very recently. NFC has been around for a long time.

> I mean the physical credit cards didn’t have tap to pay most of the time until very recently

I think a couple of years before COVID hit most cards had it, but many stores didn't support it. But once COVID came and visited, all stores got new TPVs that could read NFC very quickly.

Paper checks aren't nearly so common for anything other than maybe a local tradesman or if you're renting from an individual. It's not uncommon to see high traffic places like gas stations refuse paper checks outright, or only accept them from local banks, as the onus is on the receiver if it doesn't clear.

NFC payments have been around for a bit but are only recently very widespread, COVID really pushed that forward.

The only notable big name holdout is Walmart. Somehow, they're still on either chip+pin or magnetic stripe cards only.

Walmart famously refuse to pay the extra couple of basis points that are charged by the various payment-rails-involved-entities when doing NFC payments instead of physical card.

We literally started rolling out chip-and-pin after tap-and-go was already rolled out in England (and presumably elsewhere). It made no fucking sense because it was obviously going to be replaced again, and chip-and-pin is a miserable experience. All it did was annoy everybody for several years.

As much as I complain about Google I use Google Pay for basically everything. I'm not even taking my wallet with me...

No, I've never seen that in the US.

That does not exist in the US as far as I've seen.

There's Amazon's "just walk out" stuff, which they just killed.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com