Stepping Into The Mobile Payment Age

Subway is the next food company to offer mobile payments and ordering, so what does this mean for supermarkets?

Using smartphones to order food or beverages and then paying for them via an app, is steadily becoming something that consumers are embracing. Starbucks for example has had great success with their rewards program and allowing people to pre-order, meanwhile, just recently Burger King and Firehouse Subs announced integrations with MasterCard's MasterPass digital payment solution.

And now Subway is stepping into the pool as well, announcing that they are teaming up with PayPal to turn on PayPal’s OneTouch mobile checkout experience in an updated Subway app that works across the chain’s 27,000 U.S. locations by the end of the year.

This app will allow Subway customers to build their sandwiches using their smartphones, pay ahead of time (or while in line), then simply pick up their bag as soon as they arrive at the store.

PayPal's OneTouch program works across all apps where PayPal is installed. This means users only have to sign in one time in a supported app and then can skip logging in to PayPal the next time they check out in that same app or any other one. For Subway, this is all about simplifying the process for the consumers, and supporting the modern shoppers that, by and large, embrace a “digital lifestyle.”

As food and beverage companies continue to find ways to make the check out and payment process simpler for the consumers, supermarkets should be too. For most shoppers the checkout experience can make or break a shopping trip. Why couldn't supermarkets look to simplify and streamline the shopping experience by allowing customers to order online and stop by to pick up and pay using a mobile payment system? Or even allow shoppers to just pay online and then either have delivered or pick up from the supermarket. Increasingly consumers are going to expect retailers to have the ability to offer purchases and payments in multiple ways and supermarkets need to make sure they can offer what shoppers want.