Beware of the Square!
By Robert Day
Are you a home delivery or service company? Or a company that needs to take credit cards remotely for one of a hundred different reasons and thinking about using a cell phone device to accomplish this? If so, making the wrong choice can be very costly! The first problem is that no matter which company/provider/processor you turn to they want to sell you on why theirs is better than the other guys. The second problem is that it's all in a different language; no, not Spanish or French, but much harder... it's in Processing Geek language, which definitely requires an interpreter. According to TechCrunch, Square is signing up over a 100,000 merchants a month! But not so fast... "popular" equates to great marketing, not necessarily "best value." When it comes to the simple task of card processing on a phone you will find that the Square may have all the hype, but it's far from being a good deal. A side by side comparison of the square versus other mobile swipe readers:
Due to limited space here and the overabundance of interchange categories, it's impossible to list a side-by-side comparison for every scenario. However, suffice it to say the ones listed above do represent a very common blend for most merchants using this type of processing. With Bucket Billing (which is what the Square uses) every transaction falls into one of two categories and is easy to understand - and we all love easy! Getting milk at the convenience store is easy, and if I only need one quick gallon of milk, they serve me well. However, if I need to go shopping for the whole week, I will find using a convenience store to be a costly error. So, if you own an iPhone and have a data plan and only want to run a transaction every now and then like a garage sale or a trade show once a year, then the Square just might be a good fit. But if you are looking for a more full time solution along with the flexibility of using the phones you have currently, then I would say there are better options available. However, don't assume just because you are using a mobile plan other than the Square that you have a better deal. The mobile plan above assumes no hidden fees or extra surcharges, which will easily tip the scale back the other way. If you need free unbiased help in picking plans, Merchant Relief Council can help. We don't sell processing, or anything for that matter. We are an independent Auditing Firm that specializes in merchant processing. * Debit fees used assume the transactions are under the Dick Durbin Amendment which makes up an average of 75% of all the Debit Transactions we see. The other 25% are a little cheaper than the Credit Card fees, and still far less expensive than the Square. Robert Day is Managing Partner, Merchant Relief Council.
http://merchantreliefcouncil.org/
He can be reached at: robert@mrcworldwide.org or 800 MRC-1292.
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