Square Market brings ecommerce to neighborhood businesses
Online payment processing system Square has launched a new expansion called Square Market, a webstore that allows users to set up their own digital shops. Each store makes its own page that includes the business's important information, from hours of operation to location, along with a cleanly designed storefront to display and sell items online. The page becomes a mini-webpage of sorts with links to social media like Twitter and contact information.
Stores are free to create, with the company taking a percentage of each sale, similar to the model its epayment system has. Its cut ends up being 2.75 percent from every sale, lower than many private credit card process payments and lower than the flat fee some other online stores charge per item.
The clean and photo-friendly design of the stores will appeal to Pinterest fans, and the low percentage rate is sure to sway a few business owners who don't want to splurge on a full online store. It will be interesting to see if the company's built-in network of stores that already use its credit card readers to process payments will give it a head start against the established competition.
