Chat About Square

I haven’t looked all through your site yet, but I hope that you can help me quickly, and that I also won’t waste your time. Is your solution completely self-contained? In other words, is it not only the mobile phone processing, but also the merchant account and everything?

Are you familiar with SQUARE?

Well, my client signed-up with SQUARE yesterday, and she’s already irritated with them. They apparently have very little support; and she read some horror stories about how they handle chargebacks (whether they’re true or not is another matter of course… but I’m just sayin’). And so I’m out researching a little. I see that you’re OEMing ROAMpay; and I just want to make sure that what you’re offering is sufficiently similar to what SQUARE offers that it would be a reasonable alternative for her. I should warn that she’s VERY small volume at this point; it would almost be more like a personal account than a business one (although it would be used for both). Would your company be a good solution for her?

I’ll goo look at it, but the bottom line question is this: If SQUARE, with its obviously no monthly minimums, and no monthly fees, and extremeley low volume capabilities would have been good for her, is what you offer pretty much the same? And do you accept individuals (personal as well as their sole proprietorship activity)?

Thu, 9/1/11 12:26:56 pm

I should have worded that last question thusly: Do you accept individuals and their personal — as well as sole proprietorship business, if any — activity?

So far, a little software and books. She’s in Clearwater, Florida and is, at this moment, talking to a vendor/drop-shipper of several thousand book titles, and she’s trying to figure out, with him, if she and he would be a good fit. She does things on eBay, so far, but wants her own site and shopping cart, etc. (that’s where I come in). And, yes, if she does that, of course she’ll have a regular merchant account. But she has several times in the past couple of years wished that she could accept a credit card right through her phone when, for example, she was at a trade show or something. She’s also into folk music, and will be reselling CDs for some artists. And when she gets her web development business going she’ll want to accept cards for that. And, finally, she does promotional work for folk artists… making sure that their local concerts get promoted on radio, TV, etc., and she’ll want to be able to accept money via credit cared for that kind of work.

But she fears that her volume will be so low, at first, that it’ll be almost laughable. No fears with you guys on that?

That’s why she liked SQUARE. The seemed interested in individuals and low (or even almost no) volume. Oh… you just answered while I was typing. Sorry.

I have a couple more, if that’s okay… stand by while I type…

Thu, 9/1/11 12:35:49 pm

Once she’s got her regular web site built, and would like to accept cards through it, do you (or a sister company or whatever) offer regular merchant accounts which she could either have separately, or somehow tie to this mobile account thing? And, secondly, if she wanted to refer people — or, better yet, become some kind of reseller… maybe even branded reseller of your products — to you, is that sort of thing possible?

Excellent! I’m going to look more closely, now, around your site… and at the links you gave me. How can I copy this chat to a text file or something so I can show it to her? Or can I email it to myself… is that what the little envelope at the top of the chat window is for?

Thu, 9/1/11 12:39:56 pm

Wait… no problem… I just copied and pasted the whole thing into a text file. I get it now. Sorry.

Thanks, so much, for your help. I hope I didn’t take-up too much of your time.

Exactly! SQUARE doesn’t even list a telephone number on its site. That, right there, really irked her (and me, too, come to think of it). [grin]

Thu, 9/1/11 12:41:47 pm

Anyway, thanks. Bye, bye.