The next stage begins as Google is moving forward and expanding Wallet's functionality

Oct 18, 2011 13:21 GMT  ·  By

Google is getting ready for Wallet's second stage, it has now enabled users to redeem coupons and special offers at several partners, along with being able to pay for anything with their phone. Google Wallet promises to be a very interesting service, when and if it takes off and achieves the scale it needs for it to work.

"For the first time ever in the U.S., at... select stores, you can not only pay but also redeem coupons and/or earn rewards points - all with a single tap of your phone. This is what we call the Google Wallet SingleTap experience," Spencer Spinnell, Director for Emerging Markets at Google, announced.

Google is moving rather fast for a service of this scale. It launched Wallet only a short time ago and it enabled users to pay for anything they buy with a single tap of their phones, at the places that support Wallet.

Of course, for any payments method to work, a lot of people must be able to pay at a lot of places with it. So far, neither part is true. Google Wallet is only available for Nexus S 4G Sprint users, which are not that many.

Still, by partnering with traditional payments processors like MasterCard and Visa, Google was able to add support for Wallet at a lot of places. And more shops are joining.

In the meantime, Google has went ahead with the next stage of the project. It was only about payments at first, but Google has now made it possible to redeem special deals and coupons via Google Wallet.

To kick start the new stage, Google Offers has several deals via Google Wallet, 15 percent off at American Eagle Outfitters, 10 percent off at The Container Store, 15 percent off at Macy’s and a Jamba Juice all-fruit smoothie for $2.

Not only that, Google is also starting to support loyalty cards within Wallet. Foot Locker, Guess, OfficeMax and American Eagle Outfitters now support Wallet loyalty cards and more partners are coming.

All in all, it seems that Google is very determined to get Google Wallet right and it has correctly realized that the key to that is partnering with as many stores and businesses as possible.