Hasta La Ideas

The tech sphere is abuzz with Square CEO Jack Dorsey’s announcement of a couple new features that are already hailed as a new model for digital payments. To hear Dorsey (one of Twitter’s co-founders) tell it:

We revolutionized the payment industry with the Square card reader which makes it possible for anyone to accept credit cards on their phone. Now, with Square Register, we’re reinventing point of sale with a beautiful, intuitive iPad app. Card Case goes beyond point of sale to transform the entire buyer-seller relationship… we’re transforming everyday transactions between buyers and sellers into something special

The Square app+card reader allows merchants to turn their iPads into a mobile point of sale, with customizable inventory, as well as “Google-style analytics”—i.e. full reports of daily transactions—and digital receipts. It’s a significant upgrade from the simple (yet innovative) credit card reader that launched over $1 billion in sales, in 1 million total transactions, for small businesses.

But Square’s major innovation, in terms of user experience, is the Card Case, which links customers to merchants through virtual business or customer loyalty cards without the physical cards or case. After the first transaction between a merchant and a Card Case-holding customer, Square stores the customer information such that he or she can simply provide his or her name—as in a running tab—to make a payment. (The Card Case also serves as a transaction history, which is handy when it comes to balancing your books.)

Geolocation rounds out the Card Case’s seamless integration into real life: the app features directories, menus, specials and even exclusive incentives from local businesses.

The 2.75% transaction fee will remain the same for all transactions.

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