July 9-10, 2013
San Francisco, CA

Tickets On Sale Now

Mobile payments business Square has debuted a new piece of hardware called the Square Stand that makes using an iPad as a cash register a more elegant solution.

The well-designed Square Stand costs $300 and features a card swiper at the bottom of the device. It can also connect to a receipt printer, kitchen printer, cash drawer, and barcode scanner. Square Stand only works with the second- and third-generation iPads at present, but the company will offer a Lightning-connector version later this year.

Square has focused its efforts on the iPad because customers using the device now represent almost 50 percent of all Square transactions. The Stand complements its already popular Register software for iOS that gives businesses purchase tracking abilities.

“Local business owners take as a given that they need an ugly, slow, expensive, and complicated point of sale system cluttering their counter,” Square CEO Jack Dorsey said in a statement. “Square Stand is elegant, fast, affordable, and easy to use. Whether you’re selling cupcakes, cardigans, or cappuccinos, running your business with Square has never been easier.”

Check out the video below for more.

July 9-10, 2013
San Francisco, CA

Tickets On Sale Now

Mobile payments business Square has started offering a new “Business in a Box” package that gives a store all the hardware it needs to run Square Register and get a point-of-sale system starting at $300, the company announced today.

Business in a Box will complement the other solutions Square is offering to disrupt traditional payment methods. For example, you can plug a Square reader into your smartphone or iPad and take payments from anywhere. Its Square Register app for the iPad helps you take and track payments in-store. Consumers have Square Wallet to help them pay without even taking their phones out of their pockets.

The base Business in a Box package includes two Square Readers, an iPad stand, a cash drawer, and an optional receipt printer. All of the devices work wirelessly with the Square Register application. Business in a Box packages start at $300 and they are customizable depending on a company’s needs.

San Francisco-based Square has raised more than $341 million in funding to date. Investors include Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, Sequoia Capital, Citi Ventures, Rizvi Traverse Management, CrunchFund, and Starbucks.

Photo via Square

July 9-10, 2013
San Francisco, CA

Tickets On Sale Now

Square may have just landed a massive deal with Starbucks, but that’s not stopping the company from innovating. Today Square launched gift cards on the latest version of its Wallet app for the iPhone and Android, allowing you to send and use gift cards without carrying around a piece of plastic, reports the Next Web.

Given that the gift card market is estimated to be worth $100 billion annually, according to figures from TowerGroup, CouponTrade, it makes sense for Square to take a stab at it. If anything, it’s surprising that it’s taken the company so long to do so.

Additionally, Square also updated its Register app for merchants to accept its gift cards, as well as those from printed QR codes (the 2-d barcodes that are become increasingly common), and Apple’s Passbook, the company’s digital wallet included in iOS 6.

Square, which announced last month that it’s processing $10 billion in payments annually, is joining companies like Wrapp who are trying to popularize the digital gift market. After all, plastic gift cards have a lot of problems: They’re easy to lose, it’s hard to determine their value, and many people never end up using them. At the same time, gift cards remain a popular gift option in the U.S. Digital gift cards could solve many of those issues.

With gift cards, Square will also have a viral way to grow its business. Many consumers who may have never considered using Square’s digital wallet will install the app if they get a Square gift card. And it could lead to more Square usage at merchants, which could convince other store owners to jump about the Square bandwagon.

Square continues to step away from its iconic credit card reader dongle, which allows anyone to take credit card payments on their phones. But it’s moving yet closer to the future of payments, an idea that Square founder and chief executive Jack Dorsey (above, with Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz) has reiterated time and again.

San Francisco-based Square has raised more than $341 million in funding so far. Investors include Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, Sequoia Capital, Citi Ventures, Rizvi Traverse Management, CrunchFund, and Starbucks.

July 9-10, 2013
San Francisco, CA

Tickets On Sale Now

It’s not just about daily deals anymore: Soon you may be using Groupon’s new iPad register service Breadcrumb to check out of restaurants.

After acquiring the iPad point-of-sale (POS) company Breadcrumb back in May for an undisclosed sum, Groupon is today following through with that purchase by launching Breadcrumb across the U.S. for restaurants.

By doing so, Groupon is continuing its move towards becoming a mobile payment player to take on the likes of Square, Intuit, and PayPal. It’s also directly competing with other dedicated POS companies like Shopkeep. Groupon also launched Groupon Payments in September, which lets consumers charge credit card purchases via an accessory on their smartphone.

“Coming over to Groupon made a whole lot of sense,” said Seth Harris, Breadcrumb founder and now General Manager at Groupon, in an interview with VentureBeat. He thought that Groupon had all of the resources to realize his dream of Breadcrumb’s potential, and he’s also a believer in Groupon as a mobile payment entrant, saying the company has the “opportunity to be a major player in the world’s local commerce operating system.”

Just like every other newfangled point-of-sale solution, Breadcrumb aims to simplify the lives of restaurant owners. In addition to serving as a modern checkout solution, Breadcrumb can easily rearrange tables, split checks, and take special requests from customers. And since it’s the focal point for sales data, it can also generate reports in real-time.

Pricing starts at just $99 a month, though you’ll still have to provide your own iPad, receipt printer, and cash drawers. Groupon will also provide training on-site for businesses in New York City and San Francisco.

While a major step up from older point-of-sale systems, which generally require clunky and expensive hardware, Harris says Breadcrumb differentiates itself from other POS solutions because it focuses on the needs of hospitality businesses. His experience in the restaurant business — starting out as a bartender and eventually moving up to general manager — was one of the inspirations for Breadcrumb’s floorplan feature for keeping track of tables and orders.

For now, Harris says he’s focused on spreading the word on Breadcrumb in the U.S. Groupon’s new mobile payment plays could be a good thing for the company. Its troubled stock saw a 14 percent uptick when Groupon Payments was announced. After opening at $20 a share in its IPO last fall, Groupon is today trading at just $5.03.

July 9-10, 2013
San Francisco, CA

Tickets On Sale Now

Mobile payments startup Square has added new loyalty features to its Square Register and Pay-with-Square apps to get more people to keep coming back to Square merchants, the company announced this morning.

Last week, Square announced that it now has 2 million merchants accepting payments through its service. On top of this core payments business, the company is working on other ways to change how consumers and businesses deal with transactions. The Register app for iPad helps companies ditch their cash registers and the Pay with Square app on iOS and Android makes it possible for consumers to pay at Square merchants without pulling their wallets (or phones) out of their pockets.

Now those apps will include new ways to (hopefully) keep consumers coming back for more at their favorite Square merchants. The company has also tweaked the look of its Pay with Square app to give more info on Square merchants.

The company details the following changes:

• Tools to attract new customers and reward regulars, including first-visit specials and customizable punch cards
• Pay-with-Square users collect merchant cards from their favorite places and track rewards from purchases on an in-app punch card
• In-app reporting that provides quick access to sales trends in real-time and easy reporting, including x and z reports
• Intuitive inventory library to create categories of items for easy access and sorting
• Customizable percentage and dollar discounts for any item or sale
• Newly designed Pay-with-Square interface for discovering new businesses

Square says that since Register’s launch in March, Square Register merchants are “five times more active on a weekly basis” than merchants simply using the Square Card Reader and that Register users process approximately twice as much revenue.

You can see the new Square rewards in action in the video below:

Square Register photo: Square/Vimeo

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