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Square Inc.’s new online checkout button—a product called Square Online Checkout—likely will get a boost in adoption from the company’s nearly 10-year history of providing payments technology for point-of-sale merchants.
The new service enables Square merchants to place a buy button on Web sites and anywhere a link can be shared, such as in a text message, email, or on social media. The service is compatible with credit and debit cards, Apple Pay, and Google Pay. Square says there are no fees other than its standard 2.9% plus 30-cents per transaction fee. Among its uses are accepting retail payments, collecting donations, or subscription payments. Consumers using the link enter their names, email addresses, and payment information.
The move complements Square’s e-commerce store service and its physical point-of-sale products.
“The advantage Square has in this specific segment of the market (micro merchants), is that they are well-known as a plug-and-play point-of-sale provider,” says Patti Hewitt, principal at PG Research & Advisory Services LLC, Savannah, Ga. “By keeping in close to those principles, they’ve designed the same experience for the online market. I predict success.”
In a blog post, Square says it added Square Online Checkout because of the overall growth of the e-commerce market and because of its contention that not every merchant has the same needs. The link allows consumers to make online purchases without having to return to an e-commerce site or visit another site.
