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Jack Dorsey: Today Starbucks Signed up for Square

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Re: Jack Dorsey: Today Starbucks Signed up for Square

#101

Post by mikenon »

ivancdg wrote: post #93
colincsl wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm living in Germany for the summer and am surprised at how little people use cards here compared to the in the states. I love being able to use a debit/credit card so that everything I buy is logged. That means I can see everything (automatically tagged) using Mint. It also decreases the hassel of carrying as much cash around and going to the ATM as often. On a tangent, it seems like people here have more of a nega…

Here in France, people use debit/credit cards to buy EVERYTHING. Some merchants discourage this by insisting on a 15 euro minimum charge. But by and large cards are used more often than cash. In restaurants it is common to split the payment of the meal and have each person contribute via a card. It's been that way for years, although the frequency of card use is not as overwhelming as in the US. At the supermarket, i…

In the US charging a minimum for card transactions is usually a violation of your contract with Visa/Mastercard, and possibly a violation of the law in 10 states [1]. Are there similar contracts or laws in France?

[1] http://usa.visa.com/personal/using_visa/checkout_fees/

Re: Jack Dorsey: Today Starbucks Signed up for Square

#102

Post by mjw »

philip1209 wrote: post #62
joering2 wrote: post #4

Can someone explain me what it means for customers? As far as NYC goes, each Starbucks accepts Visa, Master Card, Discovery and American Express (the card that plenty businesses hate). So what is the benefit for the customers?

> "[. . . ] American Express (the card that plenty businesses hate) [ . . . ]" This is divergent, but I feel compelled to defend Amex here on the basis of quality of leads and consumer ethics, with the main contention being a higher processing fee for Amex relative to Visa and Mastercard. # Quality of leads "Amex cards account for approximately 24% of the total dollar volume of credit card transactions in the US, the…

"Amex cards account for approximately 24% of the total dollar volume of credit card transactions in the US"

Personally I use amex for all large transactions because they give me a cut (I think around 0.5% cash equivalent?) in air miles, but don't usually bother with it for small transactions because I don't want to risk it being turned down, or take the piss with small merchants who might suffer from the processing fees.

Perhaps this kind of behaviour explains their bigger cash volume, rather than their customers necessarily being bigger spenders in total across all the cards available to them.

Re: Jack Dorsey: Today Starbucks Signed up for Square

#103

Post by jurre »

ErikHuisman wrote: post #98
ivancdg wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Here in France, people use debit/credit cards to buy EVERYTHING. Some merchants discourage this by insisting on a 15 euro minimum charge. But by and large cards are used more often than cash. In restaurants it is common to split the payment of the meal and have each person contribute via a card. It's been that way for years, although the frequency of card use is not as overwhelming as in the US. At the supermarket, i…

Here in the Netherlands people are encouraged to use debit cards even for small amounts. Sometimes even with a small discount. The largest supermarket chain has way more "pin only" cashiers than pin and cash. It's cheaper and saver to process.

Yeah, but on the other hand it's hard to find a place where you can pay by credit card, even the large super market chains don't accept them. Although almost no one here uses them because are debit card system works very well.

Re: Jack Dorsey: Today Starbucks Signed up for Square

#104

Post by jonknee »

shalmanese wrote: post #89
raverbashing wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Question How does SB gets smaller fees through Square than negotiating directly with card providers? How do card providers allow Square to sell their services cheaper than themselves? And Square, you sure have a nice business, but the magnetic stripe is very insecure.

I'm guessing that they are going to try and get significantly lower fraud rates from pay with square (since it's a photo verification and not an insecure card strip) which can help push down rates. They can afford to break even on the conventional credit card side of the business if they can make their margins on Pay with Square.

But they are taking over all CC processing. Only a very small percentage of transactions will be made through the Square app.

Re: Jack Dorsey: Today Starbucks Signed up for Square

#105

Post by StavrosK »

zalew wrote: post #92
kayoone wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Here in Europe (Germany) i have never seen anyone buying a coffee with a credit card. Maybe debit card, but that also is rare, its mostly cash for these small transactions. Most coffee shops dont even take any cards at all, even here in germany!

if by 'Here in Europe' you mean 'here in Germany' then yeah, in Germany cards are unpopular among small business, but here in Poland they are quite common. There is often a minimum ammount in private grocery stores, but you can pay in every corporate store or cafe like Coffeeheaven and Starbucks.

Cards are likewise unpopular in Greece. You can usually use them pretty much everywhere, but almost nobody does.

Re: Jack Dorsey: Today Starbucks Signed up for Square

#107

Post by amalag »

mikenon wrote: post #101
ivancdg wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Here in France, people use debit/credit cards to buy EVERYTHING. Some merchants discourage this by insisting on a 15 euro minimum charge. But by and large cards are used more often than cash. In restaurants it is common to split the payment of the meal and have each person contribute via a card. It's been that way for years, although the frequency of card use is not as overwhelming as in the US. At the supermarket, i…

In the US charging a minimum for card transactions is usually a violation of your contract with Visa/Mastercard, and possibly a violation of the law in 10 states [1]. Are there similar contracts or laws in France? [1] http://usa.visa.com/personal/using_visa/checkout_fees/

I wonder whose lobbying dollars we have to thank for this law.

Re: Jack Dorsey: Today Starbucks Signed up for Square

#108

Post by rscale »

salman89 wrote: post #65
philip1209 wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> "[. . . ] American Express (the card that plenty businesses hate) [ . . . ]" This is divergent, but I feel compelled to defend Amex here on the basis of quality of leads and consumer ethics, with the main contention being a higher processing fee for Amex relative to Visa and Mastercard. # Quality of leads "Amex cards account for approximately 24% of the total dollar volume of credit card transactions in the US, the…

While I agree with some of your points here, you are ignoring that an Amex user does not have a second card based method of purchase. I would assume that most Amex users always have another method of payment, considering how likely they are to run into a situation where Amex is not accepted. With this logic, the business will only lose revenue from customers whose only form of payment is Amex - I think this would be…

I'm an Amex user who has a second card in my wallet, but I avoid giving business to stores that don't take Amex. I feel like it's a sign that they don't understand me, and don't want my business.

Re: Jack Dorsey: Today Starbucks Signed up for Square

#109

Post by randallsquared »

mikenon wrote: post #101
ivancdg wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Here in France, people use debit/credit cards to buy EVERYTHING. Some merchants discourage this by insisting on a 15 euro minimum charge. But by and large cards are used more often than cash. In restaurants it is common to split the payment of the meal and have each person contribute via a card. It's been that way for years, although the frequency of card use is not as overwhelming as in the US. At the supermarket, i…

In the US charging a minimum for card transactions is usually a violation of your contract with Visa/Mastercard, and possibly a violation of the law in 10 states [1]. Are there similar contracts or laws in France? [1] http://usa.visa.com/personal/using_visa/checkout_fees/

Lots of small vendors have a minimum anyway, and Visa does nothing about it as far as I can see.

Re: Jack Dorsey: Today Starbucks Signed up for Square

#110

Post by stonemetal »

bigiain wrote: post #50
jevinskie wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Square will process Starbucks U.S. credit and debit card transactions": Wikipedia says that Starbucks has $11.7 billion in revenue every year. I would assume that a majority of that revenue is through a card. I am not familiar with Square's revenue but I feel that this will at least double their transactions. Am I correct?

"I would assume that a majority of that revenue is through a card." Really? I almost never use a card for café type purchases. Maybe if I were buying a meal, but for a coffee or two I'm 99% likely to use cash. (Note: mine is an Australia-centric view, perhaps things really are very different in the USA?)

My wife actually thinks it is rude to pay with cash or check when people are waiting behind you in line. Cards are the fastest way to pay, you don't even have to sign for purchases under a certain amount.
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