Square gives makes it easy for the small business owner (part 1)
Posted on October 28th, 2011
Square is a new way to accept credit cards with a mobile device. Keeping it really simple, following Paypal, they only take out a percentage per sale. No monthly fees or extra costs. It’s pretty amazing.
Does it really work? What are the catches? As an experiment, I’ll be trying out Square for my business over the next few month for credit card transactions. I do appreciate my current merchant account, but if I use Square, I could save over $180/year in monthly fees and extra fees. Sounds like a deal I can’t beat.
In the meantime, I interviewed a few Portland, Oregon
Dane Ault with Monkey Minion Press mentioned that
“We’d been wanting to add credit card processing to our convention appearances for a while before Square came out, but due to the costs associated (monthly fees, processing costs, etc) and the arcane mumbo-jumbo that most of the credit processing companies we looked at wanted, it was just unfeasible, no matter how much it might grow our bottom line. We looked into the credit procesing services offered by Costco, and a few others things that had iphone apps and those cell phones with the card swipers built into the sides.”
Dane noticed that their sales close to doubled once they could accept credit cards at their shows. Folks didn’t mind forking over their credit card to pay for items. He’s pretty happy with how Square has met their needs. He said “The fact that the Square app can also double as basically a mobile Point-of-Sale system and cash register is just fantastic in helping us keep track of not just credit card sales but cash sales, too.”
Kim Malek at Salt and Straw explains why they chose Square:
“We researched many traditional options but found the industry to be quite confusing. We appreciate the systems to track sales by category and check on sales remotely at any time…I can keep track of what’s going on and call the shop to do things like manage labor or get more inventory as needed. Plus, it’s paper free, which supports our mission of doing what we can to tread lightly in the planet.”
Kim also mentioned some surprises they didn’t expect such as seeing their customer enjoy paying on an Ipad.
“People live seeing the sleek design and innovative interface…like getting to sign with their finger and have their receipt texted or emailed to them. It’s the only POS that causes people to cheer out in delight and call their friends over to watch them pay!”
She noted some cons were the system doesn’t accommodate for tipping so there’s been a decline in tips and some confusion with customers on the whole tipping thing in general. She also mentioned that Square is working on resolving tipping with their system.
Marco Madian, a massage therapist, found the using Square gave him the flexibility to accept credit cards no matter where he is. He works out of 2-3 offices and wanted to be able to bill for chair massages and Square is making it possible!
Marco mentioned that the downsides he’s found are the tipping aspect as well. He stated
“It would be nice if people wanted to tip that it’s not a straight % that they could just add a $$ amount instead. As a Service Industry (massage) people often tip but to add 10-15% is not normal, usually it’s like $5 – $10 or something similar.”
Dane, Kim and Marco are overall pretty excited about Square and it sounds like it’s helping to grow their businesses. In the part two of this report on Square, I explore how I’ve been using it and talk more how mobile devices are allowing businesses to use services like Square.
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I'm Nedra Rezinas:a Portland women with a background in web design, project managment, E-commerce, and providing green web hosting. Join me on my journey as I explore different marketing and e-commerce strategies that can help your business! 
