The faster eCommerce merchants can get customers through the checkout process, the more likely they are to complete that process. Much digital ink has been spilled on the value of a fast checkout, and there’s little faster than a quick tap of the finger, which is exactly what Apple Pay offers.

Apple is generally in favor of the native-app approach for obvious reasons. When it first launched, the easiest way to give eCommerce customers the option to use Apple Pay at checkout was via a native app, and for many smaller online retailers, that’s not an option.

Apple Pay has been available on the web for a while now, but there are some requirements customers must meet to use it. The most intuitive way to use Apple Pay on a non-mobile device is with the new Macbook Pro with Touch Bar. The Touchbar includes a Touch ID fingerprint scanner and the Macbook has the requisite secure enclave.

Of course, almost no one has the new MacBooks, but that doesn’t mean they can’t use Apple Pay.

Anyone with a Touch ID-equipped phone and the most recent version of MacOS and iOS can use Apple Pay on the web via the Safari browser. Apple’s Continuity technology, which powers several integrations between devices running iOS and MacOS, has been adapted to enable desktop Safari users to make purchases with Apple Pay and verify their identify using either an iPhone or an Apple Watch.

From the customer’s perspective, it works like this: the customer choose the product they want to buy and clicks the Apple Pay payment option when they checkout. Their connected iPhone or Apple Watch will ask them to confirm and authenticate, and that’s it. Checkout doesn’t get much easier.

Whether it’s worthwhile implementing Apple Pay on your eCommerce store depends largely on who your customers are. If 99% of your customers are Windows and Android users, there’s not likely to be much upside. But if even a small proportion are iPhone or Mac users, it’s more that likely worth the minimal effort to deploy Apple Pay.

Apple Pay is relatively easy to add to a Magento eCommerce store. If a store uses the Stripe payment processor, integrating Apple Pay is straightforward.

Apple Pay isn’t the only game in town for fast payments, but Apple’s mobile devices are extremely common and it’s only a matter of time before more of Apple’s laptop and desktop machines are equipped with the necessary technology. Apple users tend to occupy demographic groups with disposable income, the same groups that include the biggest eCommerce spenders, so implementing Apple Pay is likely to prove attractive to the most valuable online shoppers.

As a side note, non-profit organizations can now accept donations via Apple Pay from supported devices, so it’s worth considering adding Apple Pay for the web support to non-profit WordPress and Craft CMS sites.

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