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Connect from Square

connect.squareup.com

104 pointswodow38 comments

What about Square's Online Store? It's free? The same thing from Weebly is $25/mo.

Does Stripe have a store builder?

http://www.weebly.com/pricing

Yeah the Online Store that comes with their POS is free and pretty great - I know a lot of small merchants using it and they love it. Looks like this goes one step further and allows you to build a web store without using their hardware POS. Unlike Weebly, Square makes money by the fees on processing credit cards so they can offer the online store for free. Stripe is a only a payments processor so you need to use Weebly or Squarespace to build your store and then use Stripe to accept payments. The thing is most merchants end up using a website builder like Weebly/Squarespace anyways to establish their web presence.

(Square + SquareStore - POS) == (Stripe + 'StripeStore' - POS) -> Stripe should make a store.

by that logic Stripe should make a POS also

Well, I wish they would make an online store, so I only had to deal with one payment vender. Plus, it's arguably easier to write the store software than the POS software and deal with the hardware.

Instead of starting with a POS, Stripe could work on managing inventory and fulfillment.

Finally. I have no idea why Square didn't do is years ago before Stripe came to dominate. Square has tremendous advantage with large existing merchant base, most of whom need online processing.

I'm not sure if most of their large merchant base do have an immediate need for online processing. I always thought they targeted mainly bricks-and-mortar retail, cafes, small chains, etc.

I havent thought about this a whole lot by my initial guess was that in the past they just had their hands full capturing that large bricks-and-mortar merchant base.

It seems easier to move from that position of strength into the adjacent online payment market than in the other direction.

Timing into the market(s) would also be a factor. Square and Stripe have been at it for quite a while.

Even cafes, indie retail and food trucks have online commerce.

I think they've had her hands full with a lot of non-core activities like food delivery and payroll.

Umm, this has been around for a while. Notice the v2 tag? Source: I developed an application with this API over a year ago. Also, it's not a given that most of Square's customers need online processing. Probably most of them don't.

My guess would be 50-90%. The v1 was either hidden or private, hence the current announcement.

I developed on v1 over a year ago. Read before you respond.

Here's TechCrunch on the announcement: http://techcrunch.com/2016/03/30/square-copies-stripe-with-n...

I'm disappointed that they didn't include invoicing through the Connect API. This is my primary method of billing, and it would be great to be able to integrate this into other services.

Hi - I'm the engineering manager of the team and thanks for the suggestion and feedback. We appreciate it because feedback guides our roadmap (and hiring, p.s. we are hiring!) - keep it coming (-: - Jonathan Wolter, Engineering Manager Square Developer Platform

Exciting to see them enter the space. Can anyone find the pricing on this?

We're using Stripe, and without the ability to initiate an ACH transfer, it looks like we won't be able to use Connect from Square. If they do support it some day, I would seriously look into switching. Instant transfers are amazing and that's why I've switched back to Square Cash from Venmo.

[edit] The Techcrunch article answered my question: "Like Stripe, online checkout costs 2.9 percent + 30 cents per transaction."

Hi! I'm the engineering manager for the team. Thanks for the feedback. eCommerce pricing is 2.9 + 30c as you said, while the Register API pricing is the same as if you used Square Register. That plus more are in our FAQ https://docs.connect.squareup.com/articles/faq/. Also glad to hear you like Square Cash! - Jonathan Wolter, Engineering Manager Square Developer Platform (we are hiring Product, Engineering, and Dev Evangelism roles)

Does anybody know if there any advantages to Square over Stripe?

For us, Stripe charges 1.4% for European cards ( we are based in Europe ).

That is significant.

Stripe only charges 1.4% for European cards? I've been paying 2.9% for all cards, even if they're based in Europe.

Are you based in Europe?

No, US. So if based in Europe charging European cards it's 1.4%? Wish US-based charging US-cards was as favorable.

EU:

https://stripe.com/nl/pricing https://stripe.com/de/pricing https://stripe.com/gb/pricing

etc.

US and Japan for example: https://stripe.com/us/pricing https://stripe.com/jp/pricing ( no fixed )

Must have something to do with: http://europa.eu/rapid/press-release_IP-15-4585_en.htm

Visa and MC are responsible for that, and Visa and MC will say that the regulatory frameworks in these countries dictate that level of pricing.

The interchange rate is capped in the EU, but not cross-border.

I skimmed the documentation so I could be wrong, but it looks like there's no ACH support, which Stripe has. Stripe's ACH pricing is pretty high though, so it would be a pretty big coup for Square to provide a cheaper alternative.

You think the pricing is high for ACH with Stripe?! What pricing is better than theirs?

The low barrier to entry is a definite perk of using ACH with Stripe, at least IMHO.

Have you looked into Dwolla?

+1 for Dwolla suggestion. I use it for client payments, although the customer UX is not as clean as stripe/square here for web applications.

I see "Subscription APIs" in the e-commerce section of the marketing page, but can't find any mention of it skimming through the developer docs. Anyone have experience doing subscriptions/recurring charges with this?

Does anyone know if you can now connect to the Square payments processing hardware through the API? I would like to process in person payments through Square but keep the user experience in my application.

Yes, this functionality is now available through the Register API (announced alongside the ECommerce API)

https://docs.connect.squareup.com/articles/register-api-over...

Unfortunately that kicks the user out of your app and into Square's temporarily. And according to the TOS, the customer needs to be supervised by a merchant employee during the transaction. Ideally you would be able to handle the customer's payment seamlessly and unsupervised within your own app.

If it's unsupervised and in another app wouldn't that just be ecommerce? Or are you talking about something like a kiosk?

Yeah something like a kiosk. I want to be able to process card swipes instead of making users enter their card number (as in the Ecommerce api). The additional benefit is that you get charged the 2.75% card present fee instead of the 2.9% + $0.30 card not present fee.

This is really interesting. Took way too long though. Im curious though how this works for a market place similar to what stripe connect does if anyone has any insight before I dig into the docs.

With this release it looks like this may bring Square as a viable gateway/CC processor for 3rd party ecommerce platforms such as WooCommerce. Any confirmation?

Thanks!

Yes, this can be used as a payment gateway option for ECommerce platforms (including Woocommmerce). It's already available through both Bigcommerce and Weebly.

Yes, these two options were already available, however, anything else was off the table until this release.

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