Accepting credit card payments has traditionally been a difficult and expensive proposition for small business owners, requiring merchant accounts, lengthy contracts, crazy monthly fees, and specialized hardware. While it is certainly possible to circumvent the merchant account maze by using services like PayPal, lacking the ability to process plastic may be losing you potential customers, not to mention slowing down your receivables. Fortunately, a new service called “Square” has made it simple and cost effective to accept credit cards using your iPad, iPhone or Android smartphone.
Signing up for Square is free (and super easy), as is the card scanning widget they provide. And I won’t lie — it’s kind of cute. As soon as you insert the card reader into the audio-input jack of your device and download the free app, you are ready to start processing credit card payments. You will only incur fees when a card is charged. Square charges a flat 15¢ per transaction plus 2.75% for swiped (in-person) transactions or 3.5% for keyed-in (over the phone/fax/email transactions). Traditional card services typically charge about 30¢ plus 2.9%, so these rates are highly competitive, especially if the majority of your sales are processed in-person.
Aside from providing another customer-friendly payment method, Square’s software also makes it easy to keep track of your transactions. Customers can choose to have their receipt emailed to them and it can also include the location of the transaction. Credit card sales are automatically recorded, but you can also use the program to keep detailed records of your cash sales. With all your transaction records in one secure on-line location, it is simple to track your profits from anywhere. Another great feature is the ability to include your logo on receipts to email your customers, making Square both an environmentally friendly tool and an easy way to promote your brand awareness.
So, can you think of many businesses that might benefit from a cool tool like this? I sure can. Visit http://squareup.com for additional information and terms of use. And if you’re in the Boulder area and want us to help you with setting up a Square account or chat about how accepting credit cards might boost your profits, get in touch.
Hi there. I hadn’t heard much about Square, but this post helped steer me towards more details on it. I think it’s rather exciting for what I do: I do lawn maintenance and this would be a great way to get payments from customers right at the door. Most don’t have enough cash and I’m hesitant to take checks. Thanks for this idea.
Hi, Deb,
Being the skeptic that I am, the info about Squareup raises a couple of questions for me…
1) What do we know about the history of this company? Do you know anyone who has been onboard with them for at least several months? After having been the victim of a fraud situation regarding illegal appropriation of credit and debit card information, I am wanting to see more assurances of the credibility of the company and its founders.
2) I wonder if customers have concerns about the security of their information being collected in this way?
3) Thinking about the recent demise of a couple of very-well liked and used video-over-internet services (Dim Dim and TokBox), I wonder what would happen if these guys should go under in a few months?
Any light you could shed on these issues would be really great! I’m strongly considering using them, but am still a little cautious.Thanks!
Peace,
Beki
Hi Beci,
The history of the company stems from 2009 to present (from their site) and shows them having some fairly impressive investors, meaning other people have put their own money because they believe in the development of this project. Read more on their About page located here.
For your other questions, I did a fair amount of research on them before getting their stuff, but it was this article that convinced me. There is a community within Etsy that is using Square with excellent results. With regard to my own clients, they have voiced no concern paying this way and instead have been very accepting of this method; because the transmission does not require me keying their card number in or anything like that, I’m not retaining their private information in any way, shape or form. I have more issues with the merchant who’s still using carbon forms to accept my payments, don’t you? On the other end, it’s no different than people paying with credit cards at the grocery or other stores.
For your questions about DimDim and TokBox (online video conferencing, not payment processing companies), they are both alive and well, so I’m not getting your meaning there. DimDim was acquired by the behemoth SalesForce and TokBox is merely moving to a more open-source platform. The truth is, companies (certainly bigger ones and more influential than these latter tow) change and some even fail. While I don’t foresee that with Square, I’m not here to give you a guarantee of any kind. What I do know is so far, they’ve lived up to the promise and I’ll use them as long as they’re around. Hope this helps you.
Hi, Deb…Thanks for your quick response!
I didn’t get from the original post that you were actually using them yourself, so that in itself is great information.
Re: Tokbox, I just got an email from them that they will no longer be providing their services as it is now known (after 4/5). It will be around for the OpenTok (I think?) API that can be embedded into a website (sounds like a great service!), but not for random setting up video calls. I agree, I don’t like carbon copies, paper forms, etc for taking payment.
I’m definitely going to check out the Squareup product/service now!
Thanks again,
Beki
Glad to help, Beki and with TokBox, sometimes a change like they’re making is actually good over the long run – the community involvement can sometimes revive a brand. Look at what happened with Xmarks!
Let me know if you start using Square and how it works for you. I think you’ll be pleasantly surprised, and so will your clients 😉
Good luck, Antoine and actually yours and other mobile-type businesses I think will find this to be an invaluable tool to conduct business. Share how it goes later, k?