For some, purchasing goods from these small vendors has been a hassle as a we progress becoming an ever cashless society. Recently many of these vendors have adopted Square, a mobile payment application for smart phones and tablets.
I walked through the quad taking in all the sights and smells and came upon a tamale tent. The Gardener's Feast accepted all four major credit cards, and since I had spent what little cash I had left for lemonade, I decided to pay with plastic.
It was a great seamless experience for me. Although it occasionally has hiccups. The reason I had used my cash for lemonade was because the previous merchant was having some connection issues on their mobile phone.
This of course is expected, and sometimes has to be dealt with. This by no means makes what Square, Inc offers a bad product.
The benefit for most small business is the ability to capture customers it may have lost out on. The free app and card reader are what makes this most attractive to these businesses. The other advantage is the small fee, that's taken off each transaction to pay the credit card companies.
There are other companies that offer this type of mobile payment, like Intuit Inc, the maker of Turbo Tax that integrates directly into your taxes at the end of the year, but Square has received much more attention lately.
Starbucks recently ditched its previous point of sale machines with Square registers. Patrons can walk into the store and if they have Square Wallet set up, pay just by using their name.
Starbucks is the first major corporation to adopt this technology on a large scale, but it's really the smaller merchants that are benefitting most.
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