
Square announces the Register, a $999 point-of-sale device for larger businesses - spacemanspiffy
https://techcrunch.com/2017/10/30/square-announces-the-register-a-999-point-of-sale-device-for-larger-businesses/
======
bhhaskin
Square is a privacy nightmare. They track your purchases across stores and tie
your email to your credit card. The worst part is there is no "opt in" either.
There is no privacy policy or terms of service that I agree to. My only option
is to either pay in cash or not shop there.

~~~
askafriend
If privacy is that important to you then just pay cash. Otherwise your credit
card company, your bank, Facebook, Equifax, Google and the store itself among
others are all tracking you as much as possible across purchases in the
physical retail world and across all your web traffic. All of these datapoints
are being cross-correlated in a billion different ways.

"I'm not on Facebook" \- oh yes you are. There's a shadow profile built of you
even though you never signed up for Facebook. Same goes for Google, and many
other services you never explicitly signed up for.

So now let's talk about cash. So you pay with cash and you think your privacy
is preserved? Nope! The moment you walk in the store, the wifi beacons are
tapping into your smartphone and adding to the internal profile the shop has
of you. They know when you walked in the store, they know when you walked out,
and they probably know enough to correlate your cash payment with your
profile.

I'm sorry but that's the world we live in.

~~~
dmoy
Bunch of places near my work don't accept cash anymore (seems recent as of a
year or so ago). Card only, no checks either.

~~~
dman
Is this legal?

~~~
ReverseCold
Yes. Cash is only required to work for paying debt. The store can request
whatever payment method they want.

------
callalex
Great, now they’ll spin this huge register around so I can waste 2 minutes
figuring out how to not accidentally tip at the grocery store /s

~~~
tgcordell
Please read the article before you add a non-value comment.

~~~
reustle
They bring up a good point. Existing square point of sale tablets often push
the tip screen, even in situations where you wouldn't usually tip. It turns a
normal quick purchase into a guilty one.

------
danso
What do POS systems cost typically? For example, what does a standard credit
card reader cost, and is there additional transaction fees ontop of what
credit card companies charge?

~~~
ThrustVectoring
Pricing is fairly opaque in general, likely due to the sales structure and
cycle. Probably the closest competitor here is Clover, which Google Search
found with a cost of $999 for the first device (apparently subsequent ones are
$1249). There's an additional software and service fee ($39/mo first device,
$25/mo additional devices). So, comparable.

This is just for the hardware and software though, actual payment processing
requires a merchant account that charges fees. Everyone has to pay these. If
you're small, there's programs like these that are designed to get you your
first merchant account. If you're big, this is a negotiation process where
different sales departments will try to match or beat your current rates.

------
abritinthebay
A cheap[0] entry into a market with a lot of outdated established players.
This is a classic potentially disruptive move.

[0] new PoS systems can cost $3k and up. Seems like this is only missing a
cash drawer (optional add on) and those _are_ cheap.

------
StudentStuff
Still no scale/scanner combo support, coin dispenser, or any way to use a non-
overpriced receipt printer. Once again, Square is stuck doing a meh job
replacing the cheap cash register and nothing more.

~~~
foota
Are POS units actually cheap? Seems to me like one of those areas where things
are potentially way more expensive than it seems they should be.

~~~
StudentStuff
Yes, a Casio cash register can be had for $99 to $250 new, and has scanner
support. Credit/Debit won't be integrated, but at least you get a cash drawer
and a receipt printer included in that price unlike Square's offering.

~~~
thecity2
Not having cash actually is a feature for some establishments. There's a bar
in Berkeley that doesn't allow you to pay with cash, so they had no need for
registers. We assumed the purpose was to prevent any incentive to rob the
place (even by employees).

~~~
blahedo
> "Doesn't allow you to pay with cash"

How? Once they've poured your drink and ask for money, they can't refuse your
cash payment[0] (that's what "legal tender" means). I suppose they could
forbid you from ordering another at that point, or ban you....

[0] ETA: or rather, they can refuse it, but only if they forgive the debt. If
you try to pay a debt in legal cash, they can't tell you "no you need to pay
us some other way".

(IANAL)

~~~
jjeaff
All debts public and private refers to debts by a creditor. A drink you
haven't paid for isn't a debt. It's just an account payable. They don't have
to take your cash.

~~~
closeparen
>debts by a creditor

It's clearly not _all_ debts. I actually can't think of _any_ debts this
applies to. Your student loan, credit card, auto loan, home loan, water bill,
power bill, heck even rent if you're in a modern corporately owned complex...
would never under any circumstances accept cash payment. It would be stunning
if one even provided an address that isn't a PO box, let alone an address
where you could get in the front door if you showed up in person, assuming you
were willing to travel a few thousand miles.

At most there might be something like a retail bank branch where you could
deposit cash and then request an electronic transmission of the same amount of
money.

------
radicaldreamer
Philz in the dogpatch already has one of these and it looks pretty cool! They
should keep their distinctive white design though because it was instantly
recognizable as a Square reader.

------
amelius
This thing in the second photo looks mechanically very unstable. Imagine what
happens if customers are touching the base of your monitor all the time.

------
synicalx
Interesting, seems somewhat similar to a product the Commonwealth Bank
(Australia) offers called 'Albert'. Basically just a tablet in a fancy case
with various apps to fulfill various POS needs.

Also quite a lot more expensive than an Albert - 2.5% seems like a lot? Maybe
I'm missing some info here though, POS isn't really my forte...

------
albertgoeswoof
This is a big pos card reader. How is this interesting and on the front page?

Genuine question

------
StronglyTyped
No cash drawer?

------
koancone
Is $999 an competitive price for a cash register? Just curious.

~~~
nikolay
It is. I'm just disappointed as this doesn't seem mobile - I was planning to
donate one for our regular festival. :(

------
yueq
Device is $999.

But cost of training personnels is probably thousands more than that..

~~~
rhombocombus
That was the most valuable takeaway for me with installing and managing retail
POS systems. It doesn't matter how much time you put into planning and
inventory control, if the staff doesn't implement it correctly the POS will
never reach it's true value as a tool. It's very important to not only have
effective training, but re-training for the humans using the systems.

~~~
StudentStuff
Depends on the POS system, but older products like NCR ACS, ISS45, Toshiba
SurePOS Ace, etc all make huge assumptions that the cashiers will remember
100+ four codes, and can deal with all the curveballs that both systems throw
at the user. There are better POSes out there, where you don't have to spend a
few days training each new employee for them to be productive and competent.

