The Rise of Apple and Google Wallets in Retail
Retail is shifting toward always-on, direct customer engagement, and Apple Wallet and Google Wallet are at the center of it. What used to be a payment tool is now a high-visibility channel for loyalty, offers, and real-time connection.
More than 120 million people in the U.S. use Apple and Google Wallet, powering 35% of online purchases and 21% of in-store transactions, according to a 2025 PYMNTS Intelligence report.
With users carrying their phone wherever they go, the wallet is a natural place for retail brands to connect with customers. Mobile wallets have become a primary surface and leading brands are building a direct line to customers in their wallets.
A Loyalty Credential Becomes a Persistent Customer Identity
Apple Wallet and Google Wallet are native operating system surfaces, present on nearly every smartphone.
Retailers can now issue branded, dynamic passes that users can add to their wallets in one click. When a customer adds your wallet pass, they opt in to a direct, authenticated connection. This creates a durable, system-level presence tied to their device identity.
That pass can carry loyalty status, membership credentials, stored value, and personalized offers. It can be updated silently, without any action from the customer. And it can deliver proactive notifications to the lock screen, the highest-visibility placement on a smartphone, surfaced by the OS itself.
Five Ways Wallet Infrastructure Drives Retail Outcomes
Wallet passes are persistent, programmable, and connected to your existing systems. That gives retail teams a direct line to customers across every stage of the lifecycle.
— Increase member lifetime value (LTV) with loyalty credentials issued directly to Apple and Google wallets. Wallet passes create a direct line to your best customers, enabling frictionless loyalty redemption online, in app, and in store and driving engagement between visits.
— Drive incremental store traffic with geo-triggered notifications that reach customers when they are near your store (or a competitor’s store). Tie the notifications to stored value, local promotions, or time-sensitive offers and the wallet becomes a proximity-based connection between the brand and the customer.
— Extend member reach between visits with wallet passes that create a persistent presence to keep your brand accessible and visible between purchases. Your branded pass is a live touchpoint that travels with the customer throughout their day.
— Activate a high-visibility campaign surface with seasonal pushes, product launches, credit card offers, and funded partner promotions that all run through wallet passes. The surface is always on and the message is contextual.
— Reduce checkout friction. Wallet passes enable faster member identification at point-of-sale (POS) for faster checkout and more frequent offer redemption. This leads to more complete transaction data tied to the loyalty record and a 360 view of your customers.
With Badge, every outcome is measurable end to end including number of passes, pass interactions, notification delivery, and data from scans tied directly to customer behavior and revenue.
Wallets Are the Next Major Customer Interface for Retail
Retail has always had a presence problem. Customers visit, purchase, and move on. The window between transactions may be long and the brand relationship goes quiet.
Wallet passes close that gap. They are present on the device the customer already has in their hand while they are shopping, commuting, or at home. They are a convenient, frictionless, direct line to your best customers.
The wallet is also a verified identity surface. It knows who the customer is, what tier they hold, and what they have purchased. That is the foundation for contextually relevant offers that convert.
Wallet is a Key Part of Your Infrastructure
The brands moving on this are not treating wallet passes as a one-off campaign tactic. They are building wallet infrastructure into the core of their retail stack.
That means issuing passes at scale, updating them programmatically, and measuring wallet performance with the same rigor applied to every other revenue channel. And connecting wallet data to loyalty, CDP, CRM, and POS systems so the customer experience is coherent across every touchpoint.
Mobile wallets are now core commerce infrastructure for retail. The question is not whether to activate them. It is how to build on them well and create a competitive edge.
Badge is the wallet platform for retail. We provide the infrastructure for pass issuance, real-time updates, messaging, and measurement across Apple and Google Wallet.
Get in touch at retail@trybadge.com.
