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Square Pickup

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Re: Square Pickup

#41

Post by maxbrown »

rdl wrote: post #12

This is (to me) the most interesting thing I've seen Square do since they launched. It's a bit pricey, but there are lots of great examples of pickup/takeout working well -- chipotle, for one. If smaller stores could do this easily, I'd be a lot more likely to order from them, especially if it's a larger/group order where spending the time on the phone is a pain (and often incorrect). I don't think the economics of a…

I agree with you on the Chipotle experience, surprisingly well done.

Ambitious is right - I feel like the 8% is too steep a barrier to entry. If they launched it at 5% I could see it getting much higher adoption. Do you think it's as simple as "they can always drop it" or might a competitor outdo them on price and become the standard?

Re: Square Pickup

#42

Post by cpher »

eli wrote: post #17
cpher wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not related to Square, per se, but to give you an example from a completely different domain-- car sales. My wife and I were researching minivans in our metro area. We got calls from the dealership asking if we're still interested in the vehicle. We said 'yes'. One hour before we drove to the 'burbs' to check it out, I called to confirm the availability of said vehicle. They said 'yes, it's still here.' We get to the…

Maybe they wanted to get you on the lot even if the car you wanted was gone.

It's possible, especially given the research available to anyone with a smartphone. They were a big dealership, but the whole experience smelled of a shady used car salesman.

Re: Square Pickup

#43

Post by jusben1369 »

cpher wrote: post #42
eli wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe they wanted to get you on the lot even if the car you wanted was gone.

It's possible, especially given the research available to anyone with a smartphone. They were a big dealership, but the whole experience smelled of a shady used car salesman.

Yes sadly the sales guy thinks like this i) Tell him the car is not here they don't come chance of sale = 0%. ii) Tell them the car is here then it's not here but maybe sell them something else = 10%.

Re: Square Pickup

#44

Post by nwenzel »

rdl wrote: post #12

This is (to me) the most interesting thing I've seen Square do since they launched. It's a bit pricey, but there are lots of great examples of pickup/takeout working well -- chipotle, for one. If smaller stores could do this easily, I'd be a lot more likely to order from them, especially if it's a larger/group order where spending the time on the phone is a pain (and often incorrect). I don't think the economics of a…

For business with a limited sales window and highly perishable inventory (bagel store in the morning), standing in line may be the bottleneck preventing more customer and order throughput. If the store is able to expand their capacity via an order ahead app allowing them to capture new sales they would not have otherwise gotten, 8% seems much more reasonable.

Of course, some existing customers and sales will also move in that direction, so the answer here may be, as is often the case, it depends.

What I find truly fascinating is that Square is(was) a "payments" company. Or, more specifically, a credit card terminal company. But this offering and their recent acquisition of BookFresh makes them more of a back-end for small business. They may be one of the few companies to have figured out how to sell to small business at scale.

Apparently the answer there is, find something small, complicated, and annoying... fix it. Build that toehold into a platform to take on the larger opportunity.

Re: Square Pickup

#45

Post by awad »

crater wrote: post #36
joeframbach wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Busy food truck lines are not great for calling names out. With a line of people yapping, and traffic noise, you have to be nearly under the canopy to hear your name called, and there's only room there for ~8 people (crowded). So they'd have to send you an update to your mobile device, which now creates more questions like, how to communicate to the person in line that's been waiting for 15 minutes that no, you are n…

> So they'd have to send you an update to your mobile device, which now creates more questions like, how to communicate to the person in line that's been waiting for 15 minutes that no, you are not cutting in line. Something like a pick-up window would work. > do you show your phone to the person and hope they have good organization of orders pending pickup? In my opinion, if the food truck has implemented this Squar…

I used Paypal to pay for something in-store recently and they identified me by matching the selfie that I took in the app (that showed up on their iPad screen tied to my name) to the same one shown on the app on my phone that I held up for them. Pretty neat/clever and would work just as well here.
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