Square Expands It's Features

Square has been mentioned on this blog many times before and with good reason. It's a disruptive force in the financial business and a boon to concert merchandisers everywhere. If you're not yet familiar with Square, it's a way of doing financial transactions (like accepting credit cards) without using a traditional bank and paying their transaction fees. Square provides you with a credit card reader that attaches to your iPhone or iPad which makes these transactions a snap, especially on the road.

The Square card reader is already available at Apple stores, Wal-mark, Best Buy, Radio Shack and Target, and soon at OfficeMax and UPS stores, for only $9.99, but each purchaser can redeem a $10 credit to their bank account, so it really costs you nothing. Over a million merchants already use Square, which is impressive because there are only 8 million merchants that accept credit cards in the United States in the first place.

This year Square is rolling out new features like adding in-depth merchant analytics to its iPad experience, allowing merchants to access information about which inventory is selling well, and what they can do to help make more money. Square is also trying to upgrade the experience of running a business on just an iPad with their new iPad app Square Register, which is designed to be a point of sale replacement for cash registers and terminals.

While all that's cool for artists and bands trying to make a buck out there on the road, a new feature might be even better for consumers. Card Case, which is a virtual wallet that consumers fill with the info of all the merchants they visit and buy from who accept Square. These mobile cards include locations, merchant contact info, coupons, order and purchase history and more. Users can also use Card Case to ‘pay with their name’ and even enable hands-free payments. That means that the purchasing experience is easier than ever, which is something that everyone likes.

So if you're about to do some shows and want to sell some merch, check out Square. It's a service that you can't do without.

-----------------------------------

Help support this blog. Any purchases made through our Amazon links help support this website with no cost to you.

You should follow me on Twitter for daily news and updates on production and the music business.

Check out my Big Picture blog for discussion on common music, engineering and production tips and tricks.