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Comment by jvm | Hacker News Reader

> Square's dongles and apps are much more difficult to use than a dedicated card terminal

I have a relative that opened a natural "bath & body" store on the main street in his town. He started out with the Square hardware kit (stand, cash drawer, receipt printer, and a barcode scanner from Amazon). It was gone and replaced with real hardware within a month; not only was the POS software entirely inadequate, but checking people out was terribly inefficient and off-putting, costing them business. People don't like to hand over their card, they want to swipe it themselves. They want to be able to pay by debit. They want to see on the screen what's being charged before swiping. They don't want to sign a tablet with their finger or a squishy stylus. Nobody ever bothered to continue reading the screen after signing, so the cashier always had to spin it around, accept the signature, and skip the e-mail receipt screen. It's all terribly slow and strange compared to paying at any other store. The only thing the stand solves compared to the dongle is ease of getting a good swipe.

Every place I've gone to with Square has let me use my debit card and given me the ipad/ipod/iphone to swipe myself.

I don't believe that. Can you list 3 or 4 Square merchants that let you swipe yourself?

I own a jewelry store and we let customers self checkout. The Square Register swivels around for the customer to review, sign and print. We've had zero pushback across the board.

The Lab cafe in Ann Arbor is the only one I can remember by name but I've never had to hand my card over.

What in the world is the big deal with handing cards over anyways?

I'm quite savvy with technology and it bothers me to check out at Square merchants for much of the same reasons. First and foremost, I want to see the price of the item as I am being rung up, doubly so if the price can vary based on my selections. (Why on a varied price? It serves as a check that the person taking my order has heard me correctly.) I strongly dislike signing with my finger, something that is very inconvenient during the time of year when the weather is cold outside since I'm usually wearing gloves.

Since a lot of my small-purchase/walk-in shopping is done when I'm walking around a densely-populated area, I've found myself shying away from places that advertise "Pay with Square" or that have an iPad for a terminal. If there's something equivalent nearby, I'll just go there, especially if that store has a PIN pad.

My parents is still running a small business. None of my customers cared about handing over their cards for the 8 years I worked there.

I much prefer LevelUp's system with QR codes than Square's. Everytime I'm at a food truck my card would be swiped about 10+ times before it would go through. Totally agree about the stylus signing, no one reads the signiture anyways unless it's a fraud claim, nevermind that stylus signitures barely resembles an actual signiture (look at driver's license sig).

Transaction fees: These rates are getting pretty bad for credit cards. My parents still uses BoA terminals as a POS/processing and CC rates for AMEX was at 4%+ and about 3.5% for VISA about a year ago.

Edit: Like to point out that I actually checked signitures on back of cards and id'd people. Most people were surprised, but actually extremely happy that I did.

This isn't in Georgia by any chance is it? I was at a bath and body store that used the Square setup. First time I saw and as a techy person I thought it was neat but maybe just because it was different but not because it was simpler to checkout or anything.

Nope, not Georgia. You weren't at "Nourish" by chance? They're somewhere in Savannah, and helped inspire this other store, which carries their product line among others.

Yep it was Nourish right in downtown Savannah.

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