One of the young retailers on our street recently wrote on Facebook that she now has a Square Register at  her shop. “I’m so incredibly excited and happy and relieved – it’s the best purchase I’ve ever made for my business,” she posted.  Natalie at Zip-Dang is a talented designer whose fashion creations often make use of vintage fabrics, but nevertheless, she is on the cutting edge of the future with her use of Square technology.

Square debuted a new feature in early April that turns an iPad into a cash register, using a small credit card reader that attaches to the side of the device. An iPad app reads the card and transmits the purchase information online. The company provides credit card processing and charges a fee that seems to be comparable to other companies.

According to an article in Macworld, “Square Register offers an expanded range of features, letting merchants add photos, names, and prices of the items in their sale inventory to enable a “fast checkout” process that tallies up, records, and processes a full sale.  And Square Register also offers an analytics program to track the best-selling items and the most-profitable times of day. The app can also wirelessly connect your tablet [iPad] to a receipt printer and cash drawer.

But scanning an actual card is in itself rather retro, it turns out.  The program offers an option for customers to pay using their smartphones entitled Pay with Square.  This app, available for the iPhone or Android, allows customers to use a link pre-set with the credit card number to make a purchase.

There is also a customer loyalty program included in Square that can be customized. It appears to be somewhat similar to the Belly Card in its use of smartphone technology for making offers, finding stores in the area, and compiling points without requiring a plastic card (see my blog of May 14).

While this new technology may not work for everyone — I don’t anticipate seeing it in big box and grocery stores in the near future — it could be the ideal solution for a small store, kiosk or even occasional retailer.  If you fit that profile, you might want to check it out!

Happy Retailing,

Carol “Orange” Schroeder