Rejoice, Small Business Owners!! There is a revolution underway in the way small businesses process credit card transactions and use Point of Sale (POS) systems. This is going to help small business owners in a big way by leveling the playing field with large competitors. We have always maintained that it is possible for small business owners to beat their larger rivals by finding a niche and focusing on customer service. Now, you are getting extra help in other areas where large businesses used to have an edge. A company called Square has introduced a portable credit card device that can process credit card transactions on-the-go with just a mobile phone. Last week, they took it one step further and introduced a free POS app on iPad that will modernize the point-of-sales system for small business owners. According to Square, this new app replicates and enhances the features of cash register systems, such as order taking, inventory management and customer data analysis significantly.
This news is exciting for all small business owners for several reasons. Those who have installed and used the current cash register systems, including us, know how difficult and expensive it is. It costs thousands of dollars in hardware and support and takes weeks to configure it. Square claims that the initial setup can be done within hours with their app and it costs fraction of the old systems. In addition, it enables mom-and-pop shops do things they were never able to do and their larger rivals were taking advantage of to beat them.
Inventory management can be handled easily in the Square app enabling you to save significantly on inventory costs. The feature that excites us most is the ability to perform analysis on the sales and customer data that was difficult, if not impossible, to do with the old systems. This is a huge benefit that will help small business owners slice and dice this data in different ways and do target marketing to improve sales.
We believe these benefits will help small business owners fight head-on with their larger competitors when they combine it with these tips on how to beat larger rivals we showed earlier. In summary, you can expect the following benefits with the use of these new products from Square:
- Savings of thousands of dollars in cash register system purchase – the app is free.
- Faster setup and roll-out of POS software
- Cost savings by not having to hire someone for support of POS system
- Better inventory management, resulting in lower working capital and reduction in waste
- Ability to analyze sales and customer data for better target marketing to improve sales
We are really excited about these systems and we hope you are too. If you have not given this a try, go ahead and take a look and let us know what you think.
I agree Square has a very bright future and they are paving the way for other smaller software companies helping the small business owners of the world run their businesses much more efficiently.
Square has so much low hanging fruit internationally still left to conquer that the are many holes in the SMB market, namely Point of Sale.
http://zingcheckout.com does a great job of providing the easy interface, web based HTML5 technology, and promotional methods to customers that all small businesses secretly desire.
Square is social too 🙂 Jack is the founder of twitter.
I’ve heard that the new iPad version of Square has just been adopted for use by New York taxi drivers — I hope it goes well, because Minneapolis could definitely use a quick and easy method of payment that’s easier than cash and cheaper than credit cards! Thanks for the great info!