Square ventures into restaurants
Sarah Frier
Updated 7:56 pm, Monday, April 29, 2013
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Square has updated its payments register to enable quick-service restaurants to modify orders and customize kitchen tickets. Photo: Laura Skelding, McClatchy-Tribune News Service
Square is adding features to its mobile payment offerings to
target the restaurant industry, aiming to continue its move beyond
individual merchants such as dog walkers, taxi drivers and
food-truck vendors.
The San Francisco company has updated its payments register, which comprises credit card readers and a cash drawer, to enable quick-service restaurants to modify orders and customize kitchen tickets, Square said Monday.
It marks Square's biggest push into the food business since it introduced mobile payments in 7,000 Starbucks stores last year. Square, founded by Twitter Chairman Jack Dorsey, began offering a stamp-size credit card reader in 2009 that lets merchants accept payments on the go. Now, it's seeking to replace cash registers by companies including NCR and increase competition with devices by Intuit and eBay's PayPal.
The majority of Square's merchants are still individuals, Dorsey, who is Square's chief executive officer, said Monday. Targeting specific industries will help the company compete for cash registers as well as securing more of the market for mobile payments for physical goods, which is set to top $170 billion in transactions by 2015, according to Juniper Research.
"No. 1 right now is still individual services like the personal trainer, the dog walker, the golf instructor, the piano teacher," Dorsey said in an interview at Little Muenster, a Manhattan restaurant that uses Square's updated service. "Food is a daily occurrence, and we think we can add a lot of value to that. We can remove a lot of friction and make it easier."
More than 3 million merchants are able to use Square's card swiper, and the company is processing more than $12 billion in payments on an annual basis, it said in announcing the new services.
Square doesn't break out its revenue into categories of users. "Individuals" are most active, followed by "retail" and "services," said Faryl Ury, a spokeswoman for the company.
In the restaurant industry, "we saw a lot of mess," Dorsey added in a Bloomberg Television interview. "We saw a lot of pain that people had to go through to do very simple things, so we thought we could add a lot of value by building a simple system."
The San Francisco company has updated its payments register, which comprises credit card readers and a cash drawer, to enable quick-service restaurants to modify orders and customize kitchen tickets, Square said Monday.
It marks Square's biggest push into the food business since it introduced mobile payments in 7,000 Starbucks stores last year. Square, founded by Twitter Chairman Jack Dorsey, began offering a stamp-size credit card reader in 2009 that lets merchants accept payments on the go. Now, it's seeking to replace cash registers by companies including NCR and increase competition with devices by Intuit and eBay's PayPal.
The majority of Square's merchants are still individuals, Dorsey, who is Square's chief executive officer, said Monday. Targeting specific industries will help the company compete for cash registers as well as securing more of the market for mobile payments for physical goods, which is set to top $170 billion in transactions by 2015, according to Juniper Research.
"No. 1 right now is still individual services like the personal trainer, the dog walker, the golf instructor, the piano teacher," Dorsey said in an interview at Little Muenster, a Manhattan restaurant that uses Square's updated service. "Food is a daily occurrence, and we think we can add a lot of value to that. We can remove a lot of friction and make it easier."
More than 3 million merchants are able to use Square's card swiper, and the company is processing more than $12 billion in payments on an annual basis, it said in announcing the new services.
Square doesn't break out its revenue into categories of users. "Individuals" are most active, followed by "retail" and "services," said Faryl Ury, a spokeswoman for the company.
In the restaurant industry, "we saw a lot of mess," Dorsey added in a Bloomberg Television interview. "We saw a lot of pain that people had to go through to do very simple things, so we thought we could add a lot of value by building a simple system."
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