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Business in a Box

squareup.com

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Re: Business in a Box

#121

Post by gmisra »

drfritznunkie wrote: post #105
gmisra wrote: post #76

I own a small business and we have experimented with Square Register and other ipad-based POS systems. Register is by far the least feature rich of all of the offerings we looked at - this is not necessarily a bad thing. Specifically, Cons * Register is not designed for restaurant use - many of these reasons have already been discussed on this thread, the biggest being the lack of modifier support. * Register does no…

Just curious, what system did you choose and for what type of business? As I mentioned above, I set up my friend with BreadCrumb which is okay for quickserve, but not great. There QS workflow needs to be extensively overhauled, and they need to support sig-less CC transactions and gift cards. If I were to do it over again, I might actually look a bit more at a QS specific system, even if it's windows95 POS POS (ha!),…

We actually switched from a retail focus to a wholesale focus, so we not longer need a POS. We still use Square as our credit card processor.

I have helped set-up a QS implementation on top of the Revel POS and would not recommend it at all. I've seen the Gopago POS and it's actually probably the best fit for QS.

Re: Business in a Box

#122

Post by katabatic »

samstave wrote: post #118
mmanfrin wrote: post #49

Disclosure : I work for GoPago, a direct competitor in this market. I am approaching this with a lot of built-in bias. Square is pretty late to the game. Their software is pretty, but it has a much smaller featureset than every other tablet-based POS software out there (including our own competitors). Additionally, their prices do not include the cost of the iPad, which is another $500 on top of this 'business in a b…

This was totally obvious to me when I reviewed the product page for the "business in a box": My first thought was, hmm... no iPad. Then I thought: "Zero information on the system, apps, features etc that this would offer" I see a retail cashiers pedestal in a box and nothing more. Also, that receipt printer is $200?!?!? ---- A long time ago I wrote here on HN that I thought Square could kill if they really did offer…

Do the math again :)

The receipt printer is $300. I boggled at that too, and then looked around, and that's really what it retails for (or close enough). I have difficulty understanding why it's so expensive, but do keep in mind that it's designed to work for years on end in a retail environment -- it's got to be overbuilt to last.

Re: Business in a Box

#123

Post by novaleaf »

mmanfrin wrote: post #49

Disclosure : I work for GoPago, a direct competitor in this market. I am approaching this with a lot of built-in bias. Square is pretty late to the game. Their software is pretty, but it has a much smaller featureset than every other tablet-based POS software out there (including our own competitors). Additionally, their prices do not include the cost of the iPad, which is another $500 on top of this 'business in a b…

what about support non-USA businesses? the norm for creditcard processing in Thailand is 5% for an online business, preety craptastic

Re: Business in a Box

#124

Post by dmckeon »

signed0 wrote: post #111

I had hoped they had come up with a more robust version of their card reader. There have been several times where it has taken 5+ swipes to read my card. I have also witnessed this happen to people in front of me in line. My credit card has never had a problem anywhere else. I've found it easier to just use the Square app on my phone, though I've yet to see someone in front of me in line use it.

We found that the prompt after a failed Square swipe is poorly worded. It says something like: try again, only faster - but it should say: try again, at a different speed since swiping the card more slowly often worked when trying faster did not work.

Re: Business in a Box

#125

Post by kmf »

aresant wrote: post #95
mmanfrin wrote: post #49

Disclosure : I work for GoPago, a direct competitor in this market. I am approaching this with a lot of built-in bias. Square is pretty late to the game. Their software is pretty, but it has a much smaller featureset than every other tablet-based POS software out there (including our own competitors). Additionally, their prices do not include the cost of the iPad, which is another $500 on top of this 'business in a b…

I just checked out GoPago vs. Square's Register page ( https://squareup.com/register or https://squareup.com/register/hardware/ ) - GoPago is beautiful and crisp, but Square does a better job getting instant engagement (free card reader or "Shop Now" / just leave email offer on LP etc). Since the start one of Square's major advantages is their deceptively simple user interface - their conversion rate of getting inter…

I think you pasted the wrong thing! Here's GoPago: http://www.gopago.com/

Re: Business in a Box

#126

Post by damian2000 »

katabatic wrote: post #122
samstave wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This was totally obvious to me when I reviewed the product page for the "business in a box": My first thought was, hmm... no iPad. Then I thought: "Zero information on the system, apps, features etc that this would offer" I see a retail cashiers pedestal in a box and nothing more. Also, that receipt printer is $200?!?!? ---- A long time ago I wrote here on HN that I thought Square could kill if they really did offer…

Do the math again :) The receipt printer is $300 . I boggled at that too, and then looked around, and that's really what it retails for (or close enough). I have difficulty understanding why it's so expensive, but do keep in mind that it's designed to work for years on end in a retail environment -- it's got to be overbuilt to last.

I don't think thermal or dot matrix printers have ever been cheap, have they? When they were surpassed by ink jets in the 90s maybe they became a specialist item.

Re: Business in a Box

#127

Post by maguay »

novaleaf wrote: post #123
mmanfrin wrote: post #49

Disclosure : I work for GoPago, a direct competitor in this market. I am approaching this with a lot of built-in bias. Square is pretty late to the game. Their software is pretty, but it has a much smaller featureset than every other tablet-based POS software out there (including our own competitors). Additionally, their prices do not include the cost of the iPad, which is another $500 on top of this 'business in a b…

what about support non-USA businesses? the norm for creditcard processing in Thailand is 5% for an online business, preety craptastic

Though many online businesses in Thailand let you pay via bank transfer, which can get around the fees in many cases. That's not something that'd work in the US, but it's very common over here.

Re: Business in a Box

#128

Post by erikpukinskis »

spydum wrote: post #113
ahoyhere wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're assuming they don't already pay for connectivity for an existing system, which all existing stores with POS must. Which means the additional cost over what they're paying is probably $0 to switch, vs possibly having to cancel and sign up with something new. And many of the people who will use this probably already use regular Square.

connectivity for an existing system makes sense at a retailer with a physically persistent location.. but if you are looking at being mobile, you need data connectivity. I think this breaks down easily: 1) You DO have existing device and data plan, and need to be mobile: Square (or similar service) makes sense. 2) You DONT have existing device or data plan, and need to be mobile: GoPago I think the evolution of phone…

You can get an iPad with a data plan. $15-30/mo is still a lot less then $99.

Re: Business in a Box

#129

Post by erikpukinskis »

thinkcomp wrote: post #83

It's too bad that Square gets all the press when the tech community should really be spending (at least some of) its energy trying to defeat a law that makes it a federal crime to start a payments company that actually does change things. See http://www.aarongreenspan.com/writing/essay.html?id=86

I support your cause, so I'm going to give you some feedback. Feel free to ignore it.

I've seen a lot of posts and comments from you on HN. I've visited FaceCash a number of times. You've built some cool infrastructure, and I think many of your visions about what the future of money should look like are spot on.

That said, you come across as having a lot of anger and entitlement and that makes me want to ignore you, even though I think you're totally right that our payment laws are messed up. Complaining about competitors doesn't help you, it just makes you look like a whiner.

Square is making very crafty strategic moves to slowly maneuver around the regulatory issues that are sinking you. It's bullshit that they have to, yes. But that's what they're doing. Criticizing them or the press they're getting just looks like sour grapes to me.

If you made a strategic plan to actually route around the screwed up stuff in the system, or to chip away at the edges of the problem with concrete steps, without denigrating other people who are trying to innovate in the space, I would feel a lot better about supporting you. But as it is it seems like you're just going to complain about the state of affairs while your business gets ensnared in well documented roadblocks.

Again, feel free to ignore this. I could be totally wrong about your strategy. I just wanted to give you the feedback since you seem to be soliciting support and may be interested in why people aren't lending it.

Re: Business in a Box

#130

Post by hoodq19 »

I'm not looking for them to include an iPad or a data connection. I'd buy it if it came with customers. The "business in a box" marketing would then be spot on.
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