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Square Terminal
- rajeshpant 8y agoHow is it different from a payment terminal machine from bank?
- runwerks 8y agoit uses square
- DanCarvajal 8y agoIntegrates with all the other Square stuff I assume.
- ceejayoz 8y agoThose typically require a full merchant account, don't they?
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- huac 8y agono chargeback fee is interesting
- hrktb 8y agodo you have a specific use case in mind where it’s a big advantage ? 2.6% + fixed fee seems to me mildly high for a card in the reader + pin entered type of solution. Also chargebacks should be ridiculously rare in this setting.
- lyricalpanda 8y ago2.6% + 10c with no contract fees, no cancellation fees, no minimum amount of purchases per month. It actually comes out to not be as expensive as most people think.
- bpicolo 8y agoI hope this takes off solely so I can pay with a credit card directly at my table at restaurants instead of having them take it to back of house. Much of Europe has been doing this correctly for a long time now
- techsupporter 8y agoI'd even be happy if the United States can go one step prior to this and actually have the customer-facing portion of the terminal (the bit with the slot, keypad, and NFC reader) actually face the customer. I'd use tap-to-pay and such far more often if I could reliably use the part of the terminal that's supposed to be for my use and if it said up front if tap and insert are supported. Instead, right now we get this madness, especially at a lot of smaller shops, where the clerk is using the merchant side box to enter the payment amount then fumbles around with the customer side pad to insert the card and complete the transaction for me. Just let me tap or enter my PIN, please. (I have two cards that are PIN primary. I've put stickers on both that read, in large letters, "THIS CARD USES A PIN PLEASE ALLOW ME TO ENTER IT." On one of them, it has, in smaller letters, "THE TRANSACTION WILL DECLINE IF YOU DON'T.")
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- seba_dos1 8y agoThat's exactly how it usually works everywhere here in Poland. The terminal faces me, I tap the card to it and enter the PIN. At least in my bank, PIN is needed for every transaction above 50 PLN, so I can't imagine it any different.
- mikepurvis 8y agoWhat you want is also how it works in Canada, pretty much universally.
- atombender 8y agoI'm on the East Coast, and I find that lots of stores have the user-facing terminals now. Either the are tablets that flip or turn, or they are a permanently outward-facing screen like the Square one. The latter type is definitely preferable.
- joshuawright11 8y agoIMO Square has great looking hardware but their software is pretty mediocre and unattractive. The Stripe guys are killing it on the software front recently, wondering if square should continue pushing hard on the hardware front when stripe is eating their online lunch.
- acchow 8y agoStripe is eating their online lunch? They go to different cafeterias and eat different cuisines
- snuxoll 8y agoMy problem with Square is they are so focused on their ecosystem that they basically ignore anyone that doesn't operate a traditional retail store or restaurant. I'm really excited about Stripe Terminal as a developer, and I think they can eat Square's lunch by focusing on purely being the payment intermediary and letting 3rd parties develop solutions around their SDK (which supports web browsers in addition to mobile platforms, unlike Square which only supports iOS and Android and just recently divorced itself from requiring the Square app too).
- lyricalpanda 8y agoThe first statement is a bit unfair. Square is pretty generic now, but of course a one size fits all solution isn't going to cut it for every case. I don't think that is a negative thing to ignore smaller markets that aren't as profitable if they dedicate tens/hundreds of millions of dollars towards these niche markets. You misunderstand what strengths Square and Stripe both have. Stripe is a pure API/SDK that integrates with third-parties for everything other than payments. Square has all those "third-parties" services bundled in to make it a much smoother experience for merchants. Payroll? Analytics? Dashboard? Everything is right there for you at Square. Stripe? They just link you to a bunch of third party sources. Ultimately it boils down to: Stripe is geared towards more tech-savvy customers or those who can afford development costs for all these custom integrations + working with 3rd parties. Square is geared towards people who want it all in one ecosystem and don't need a lot of customization. Stripe won't "eat" Square's lunch when it comes down to the base use-case of a simple merchant wanting an easy onboarding experience and taking payments. Stripe is anything but that. And for larger merchants you have to worry about what third-party services you integrate with Stripe - what if one of them goes under? Switching third-party services might be a huge pain. You don't have to worry about that with Square. Not to mention that first-party services always are better than third-party services. Square can always come up with better services to offer its customers because it has access to all the data. Third-party services are limited to what they can get via an API. And as of right now, Square is actually beating Stripe on the SDK game with the release of ReaderSDK.
- orliesaurus 8y agoI hated it on square's software that when I was in "financial high waters" and the person can see that I clicked the "other tip" and had to give $1 instead of $2 or $5 tips. That's just a human thing tho, the rest of the square hardware fleet is on point!
- eddyg 8y agosee https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18241477 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18241477
- orliesaurus 8y agothank you, that was a good read!
- jumelles 8y agoIf this can always process chip cards that quickly, I'm very impressed. Usually it's at least 10 seconds, just standing there staring at the card reader, waiting.
- GarrisonPrime 8y agoI use their current (now prior, I guess) chip reader, and it completes the transaction within just a second or two. Most of my customers are surprised it's so fast, compared to other chip reading registers around town. That could be because I'm using a cellular internet conneciton however. My town's cable internet is notoriously throttled.
- eigenvector 8y agoDoesn't it depend on the speed of Internet connection? Here in Canada, chip terminals often show 'PIN OK' - meaning that the local part of the transaction has been completed - within 1 second but then need 10+ seconds to communicate back to the payment processor.
- dsimms 8y agoNot just in Terminal, but chip and tap in general: https://squareup.com/us/en/press/square-makes-payments-even-faster https://squareup.com/us/en/press/square-makes-payments-even-...
- kondro 8y agoThe average time to complete a scheme card transaction is sub 4 seconds on a lowish-latency network. Any extra time is due to the implementation on the merchant side.
- jdironman 8y agoHonest question, I have never used Square, but what does the back-end for setting up products look like? In a resturant you may have many variations for a meal (Hamburger, no lettuce, extra mayo, etc.) and some may incur different fees. Has anyone had experience with that which can provide links or insight? I ask this because I got asked to help with a local mom and pops (Taco Shop) setup of their POS and genuinely curious.
- maxmcd 8y agoThey have great support articles/resources: https://squareup.com/help/us/en/article/5228-basic-inventory-management https://squareup.com/help/us/en/article/5228-basic-inventory...
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- tdeck 8y agoI worked on the Square API for more than a year so I am fairly familiar with their data model for items, although I think it has since been enhanced. Basically you have an item, and within that item there are variations (like different SKUs). Items can also have modifiers that apply to that particular item, and these are multiple choice. So you'd have a burger item say, where the variations are beef or veggie. Then you'd have modifiers like lettuce, tomato, onion, etc. Modifiers can have a cost or be free, different variations have a price. You can also apply discounts which are like items that affect your total as a whole or the price of specific other items.
- jdironman 8y agoThank you, very informative. I was sure they had accounted for such use. I am not sure what system they have chosen (or if they have chosen one yet) but I will most likely put Square on my list of suggestions if they ask. Thanks again.
- GarrisonPrime 8y agoSigh. A $400 all-in-one solution, released just a few months after I spent $950 for their prior setup. I'm still making payments on it...
- colmvp 8y agoI'm going to be curious how it stands up to wear and tear. I notice that these types of terminals which are brought to tables tend to be pretty beat up.
- consto 8y agoIt looks sleek but the lack of physical buttons seems pretty bad from an accessibility perspective. And it is another always on screen that will inevitably always be a little too bright for comfort. As boring as the traditional terminals you see all around the UK are, they get the job done.
- ProfessorLayton 8y agoI've helped run a family home improvement business for a while now, and for now we're a little wary about accepting electronic payments, since the fees are so high + the possibility of dealing with a chargeback. It's interesting that they mention disputes with high 4-figures. Contracts are routinely over 5 figures, so 2.6% ends up being quite a big cut just to accepts credit. I suppose a ~2.6% fee could be added, but that still leaves exposure to chargebacks. Does anyone here have experience using square with large payment amounts?
- techsupporter 8y agoI helped two friends who do trades work set up for taking card payments. Both report that their average charge amount increased by more than enough to make paying to accept cards worth it. As a customer, I can attest to this. The hassle of paying by check (I’ve had checks stolen and abused, plus I don’t keep them handy any more) or (perish the thought) cash for more than a couple hundred dollars is not worth it to me. I will seek out the next-most-trusted contractor who does accept cards and use that person.
- hwc 8y agoThis is a nice technology, but paying this overhead on every transaction is highway robbery. Can everyone not in the credit-card/banking industry band together and negotiate a better rate?
- dawhizkid 8y agoI feel like they should've future-proofed a little more by including a scanner. Scanning QR codes to pay is huge in China (Wechat Pay) and Chase has their own "Chase Pay" app that lets you pay with a QR code as well. Would also presumably enable crypto payments.
- floatingatoll 8y agoCVS Pharmacy recently gave up on a years-long initiative to convince Americans to pay with QR codes. It seems market-appropriate, in light of that total failure, to have reservations about adding camera hardware to a cash register.
- dawhizkid 8y agoAFAIK Starbucks' own app represents a sizable percentage of mobile payments in the U.S. and is QR-code based. I don't think Square should take cues from one random merchant's failure with QR-code payments to decide whether or not it will take off in the future. Also I assume Square has ambitions to expand globally and in doing needs to shake off a western bias when it comes to payments.
- floatingatoll 8y agoCVS just paid $69 billion dollars to buy a health insurer. Calling them a “random merchant” considerably underestimates both their leverage over, and in general their relevance to, the payment processing industry. EDIT: Square’s 2017Q4 net revenue is about $600 million dollars, CVS’s 2017Q4 net revenue is about $48 billion dollars. Assuming the retail 2.5% transaction fee, CVS paid $1.2 billion dollars of credit card fees in 2017Q4, approximately double Square’s total revenue for that period. Square would be very wise to take note of CVS’s failure in the QRcode payment app market, given that CVS generates twice their total net revenue in processing fees alone.
- dawhizkid 8y agoCVS’s main business is not their retail business but their Pharmacy Benefit Manager biz which they share a duopoly for, which is a b2b business and nothing to do with the CVS you or I see. To take 2.5% of their revenue and assume it’s all consumer retail transactions is just completely wrong.
- MithrilTuxedo 8y agoHow is this going to affect how often I get asked to tip? I want to see less tipping, not more. Square seems to be one of the primary offenders in introducing bribery to transactions where I don't really want to rate how much I was pleasured by the personal performance being put on for me. Getting coffee shouldn't be embarrassing, and don't prompt me to tip you before you give me what I'm paying for.
- peterwwillis 8y agoTipping helps pay for a worker's living. If tipping didn't exist, the cost would just go back into the base cost of the drink. One way to get out of the embarrassment you feel is to tap the preset tip button and go on with your day. Tipping isn't bribery. If your barista is making your coffee differently based on a tip, they're a bad barista.
- Nullabillity 8y ago> If tipping didn't exist, the cost would just go back into the base cost of the drink. So the advertised cost would actually be the honest that you would pay for the product. What a horrible world that would be!
- zaksoup 8y agoOne thing to keep in mind is that in many states tipped minimum wage is significantly lower than hourly minimum wage. As low as $2.50 an hour. Tipping is bad for everybody, including the workers involved, but framing tipping as purely a response to “performance” isn’t always the whole story.
- kmm 8y agoIn no state is the minimum wage the employee takes home lower than $7.25 an hour. The employer can pay them less only if the tips make up the difference, down to $2.13(!) an hour. Of course, most waiters and servers end up making quite a bit more. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tipped_wage https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tipped_wage
- eaurouge 8y agoAny hardware engineer know how one goes about sourcing electronics (IC) for a chip reader? Thinking directly from the manufacturer, I know you can order stuff on AliExpress but I'd prefer to be able to rely on the original chip maker's docs, evaluation kits etc.
- sbr464 8y agoI’d be curious in this as well.
- tonywastaken 8y agoIs that an iPhone? iPad? Android?
- matahwoosh 8y agoAndroid-based.
- nikolay 8y agoThe design is pretty ugly. I'm not sure why each device Square sells has different processing fees. They didn't use to charge a fixed fee ($0.10), but now they do on all new devices, which gives me no incentive to upgrade. Their rate is pretty much 1% higher than you can get from a merchant account and even more when it comes to debit cards. My long-term bet is on Clover and even Stripe. In a very short term, Square launched a bunch of devices, but most don't work with Bluetooth barcode scanners, so, their mobile promise is unfulfilled and this actually is their niche. They also push for the super expensive Socket barcode scanners - you can buy a better one for a tenth of the price, but Square won't work with it, because they want to sell you the expensive Socket. Last, but not least - Square does not give nonprofit discounts. Both Stripe and PayPal gave our nonprofits half percent off from the processing fees.
- cornel 8y agoInteresting fact: Square terminal does not support pin entry. Chip and sign or on device cvm for high value Mobile payments (apple and google pay).
- parliament32 8y agoProbably because PIN entry devices have a lot of security standards that you can't emulate on a touch screen. It's a shame because basically everyone except the US has moved on to chip+pin, and the US will transition in the next few years, so this product won't be around for long.
- cornel 8y agoYou can have pin entry on a touch screen. Indeed Not as easy as not having pin entry, due to those security standards, but it is possible. Have a look at https://www.pcisecuritystandards.org/assessors_and_solutions/pin_transaction_devices https://www.pcisecuritystandards.org/assessors_and_solutions... and filter on ‘touch screen, as entry technology. Populair name is pin-on-glass.
- parliament32 8y agoIs it going to ask me for a tip up-front for every single transaction, like the tablet terminal things do?