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Jack Dorsey: Today Starbucks Signed up for Square

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191–199 of 199 posts

Re: Jack Dorsey: Today Starbucks Signed up for Square

#191

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In Pittsburgh, 90% of the businesses that take Square are coffee shops for whatever reason

agreed - the few coffee shops i frequent in Chattanooga are Square users. as well as my haircut place, a few sandwich shops, and a drink spot. I feel like the Starbucks is catching up with their more efficiently operating 'local' competition. But its still a great move.

How is it "more efficient"? Square is for garage sales. Why would a brick-and-mortar chain with electricity and Internet access use a flimsy mobile payment system, when they can use a regular card reader?

Re: Jack Dorsey: Today Starbucks Signed up for Square

#192
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!

In the UK it's very common to pay with cards. It's even more cashless than the US or Canada, I feel.

I normally don't use a card for less than £5 though.

Re: Jack Dorsey: Today Starbucks Signed up for Square

#194
post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I see a lot of talk in this discussion about debit cards. I currently have only a debit card through my bank with my checking account, however, always run it as a visa and NEVER run it as a debit card. A lot of times, for small purchases, I don't have to sign, so it's quicker then running it as debit since I'd have to enter my pin. I don't know why I never run it as debit. Something about entering my pin in line at a…

Here you always have to use your pin with credit cards too afaik!

Re: Jack Dorsey: Today Starbucks Signed up for Square

#197

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You forgot about dot-matrix printers in "draft" mode.

... on 75% post-consumer recycled paper.

I was thinking about the old continuous tractor-feed paper, some kinds are really thin, almost slightly translucent, for that extra subtle low-contrast retro design! ;-)

Re: Jack Dorsey: Today Starbucks Signed up for Square

#198
post #188

Here's what's in it for Starbucks: Square's cheaper. Square loses money on transactions below $6. The reason is for the sake of simplicity they waive the per-transaction fee that Visa/Mastercard charges them and just charge a flat percentage of 2.75%. But even though this is a relatively high percentage, it's not enough to recoup the cost of the per-transaction fee at low transaction sizes. Take a $2 coffee charged t…

> Visa charges Square 1.76% + 6 cents Last I checked, Square had not published the transaction fee they negotiated with Visa.

Interchange is a fixed non-negotiable set of rates, published by Visa & Mastercard. See http://usa.visa.com/merchants/operations/interchange_rates.h...

Re: Jack Dorsey: Today Starbucks Signed up for Square

#199

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Businesses don't get to negotiate with Visa and Mastercard. They negotiate with banks. And banks negotiate with large volume customers. That's why McDonald's can afford to take credit for a $1 ice cream cone without losing 33% of it to the card company. Square has a lot of options in the way they process transactions, and they have a very high volume (now more so than ever)

...right, so why cant starbucks negotiate with banks, much like mcdonalds does?

because the parent is wrong, McDs doesn't negotiate with the banks either. they negotiate with a payment gateway provider. which is what Square is.
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