The first time I saw someone use Square was last year during a brief shopping excursion in Chinatown. I was in San Francisco for a User Experience conference and had a few hours free to explore. I had just found what I would refer to as the “cutest iPhone case ever” shaped like a bright red strawberry being sold in a tiny corner shop… and I just had to have it.
The shopkeeper took my credit card and swiped it through a little white square attached to her iPhone. I had plenty of annoying questions about the little plastic devise. I also became more aware of the dark corner store I was in not appearing to be as “polished” of an establishment as I might like to be conducting business in…
Square iPad Register
After realizing that this was a completely safe way to make a purchase, (and convenient for me as a customer since it can automatically email you a copy of the receipt of your purchase) I later thought of it as a small business solution.
However, I was surprised to see it again being used on an iPad that was set up tolook more like a cash register in a large fast food store located in the Mall of America last week.
It got me to thinking… how much cheaper it must be to get a Square account and plug it right into an iPad. A quick Google search shows the average price of a cash register can be hundreds of dollars, often needing repairs and updates as the years go on that can be costly.
Could this adoption of “plug in” transactional tools be the end of cash registers as we know it? What do you think?
