Apple Banking on Special Events to Draw Apple Pay Users

I lost my wallet once. It was a terrifying and depressing few days of attempting to recover the scattered bits of my life contained therein. Though it was recovered shortly after, and not far from where I thought I’d lost it to begin with, Apple, however, is inviting users to lose their wallets in a completely different way, as part of an event to draw attention to Apple Pay.

The Apple “Lose Your Wallet” event will be running for one weekend in San Francisco, calling attention to 36 local merchants that accept Apple Pay as a payment method. Said merchants will offer a specific sale for those who actually use the Apple Pay option, with discounts running from 10 to 25 percent.

If that weren’t good enough, Square will actually step in and set up some pop-up shops to provide still more Apple Pay offers. Parking costs will also be dropped by half if Spot Hero is used to book spaces, and those who use Caviar for local restaurant delivery will be able to enjoy a $5 off arrangement.

Some might question the overall impact of such a move, and it’s easy to see why. San Francisco is already a big place for mobile payments, so it’s not like Apple’s introducing anything new here. However, Apple may be trying to pull in more users overall, and going somewhere where they already trust mobile payment systems could go some way toward pulling in more users. Apple Pay, after all, is part of the Apple walled garden ecosystem, so Apple can only pull in Apple users. It really can’t make this offer to anyone but Apple users, so it can’t be working to pull in Samsung or other users.

Apple is likely trying to up its comparatively low internal Apple Pay user stats, and a big event designed to pull them in would likely help. Of course, Apple’s also going to have to leave its California comfort zone—plenty of Apple users in Topeka, Minnesota, and even New York—to really get the field opened up. Still, good effort for Apple, and one that will likely end well.