
Square Finally Gives Up on Square Wallet and Bets on New Order-Ahead App - uptown
http://recode.net/2014/05/12/square-finally-gives-up-on-square-wallet-and-bets-on-new-order-ahead-app/
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jowiar
The biggest utility problem for wallet was that the processes in question
were:

"Does this merchant use Square? Sweet - I'll give it a try. Pull phone out of
pocket, open app, wait for GPS to lock on and find the merchant, check in to
merchant, tell checkout person I'm using wallet. Wait for them to try to
figure it out since I'm the first who has used it in a month. Charge account"

vs.

"Pull piece of plastic out of wallet. Charge account".

~~~
untog
I used Square Wallet where I could, because if I used my card I had to sign on
the iPad screen, which was always kind of awkward.

But I don't really know why I had to do that - in plenty of other places I can
charge ~$5 without signing. And the software was controlled by Square. So
effectively, Square Wallet helped me solve a problem that Square caused in the
first place.

Now I have Google Wallet enabled for tap payments on my phone. Every time I
use it I feel like I'm living in the future. Except I can only use it in Duane
Reade.

~~~
kkwok
Not sure if this is why Square required you to sign, but rates for covering
fraud are affected by whether you have customers sign or not for credit cards.

~~~
natdempk
Whats the theory behind this? Many people (myself included) just scribble on
the receipt because its inconvenient. Merchants never have a problem with
this, meaning it could easily be someone who stole my card signing that
receipt. Why does this unverifiable, meaningless "signature" change fraud
rates?

~~~
yogo
I've always wondered about this myself as I'm not familiar with dispute
resolution for something like this. However, it seems like part of the
resolution if an establishment has cameras it seems like they can pull up the
frames for the time displayed on the receipt, and present that as evidence
that you signed (scribbling shouldn't matter). If it wasn't you in the video
then it could be fraud or a friend/relative using your card.

I've only seen investigations for online orders, digital purchases, etc. and
not for a restaurant-type setting so it would be interesting to know if video
can be used.

------
inthewoods
"Square Wallet provided a very magical experience but didn’t have a lot of the
utility value,” Square’s Ajit Varma said in a recent interview."

I'll admit it - I threw up a little bit in my mouth when I heard "magical" in
this context. For me, utility is the magic.

And then this: "That said, the company raised some eyebrows a few weeks back
when it said it would charge businesses eight percent for these order-ahead
transactions, rather than the 2.75 percent flat rate for most credit card
purchases that run through Square’s platform. The reasoning, it said, was that
the feature would help bring in new customers."

8%? For a SMB operating on likely thin margins? Merchants would be crazy to
sign up for this service.

~~~
wpietri
I think "magical" is a reasonable term for it. A lot of tech marketing
involves people being wowed. Apple, for example, is great at it.

Utility is definitely the long-term driver, but I'm eternally surprised how
far a product can get on "magic". 3D, for example, has been running on that
since at least the 1950s.

~~~
inthewoods
Apple is great at making something that has a lot of utility and then making
it look/work great as well. To me that is what defines magic. No utility +
pretty interface = unmagical.

------
wehadfun
What problems with paying with credit card are solved with paying by phone?

You can loose both, you can forget both, Also credit cards are water proof,
drop proof, have no battery issues, no network connection issues. Even though
you could leave your credit card at home you still need to carry your drivers
license, work badge, grocery discount card, student id, gym membership card,
atm card in case you need to get cash, make up, car keys, so what if you have
to carry an extra card.

~~~
nairteashop
A few reasons why I'd like to pay by phone:

\- It's a bit easier to pull out my phone from my pocket vs. pulling out my
wallet, then locating my card, and then pulling that out

\- Tapping my phone is an easier process than aligning and sliding my card
through a narrow slit

\- I'd love it if coin-like functionality is one day integrated into my phone,
so I can select a specific card to use vs. digging through my wallet for it,
or switch cards quickly and try again if the first one gets denied, etc.

These are all admittedly minor, but many successful technologies are about
increased convenience anyway.

------
greggman
I've always been curious if they can reproduce the NFC style wallets in Japan
(Asia?) in the USA.

Here in Japan the train companies have NFC cards. The cards act mostly as
cash. You put money on the card itself. I don't know exactly how the
accounting works but AFAIK there's no server being contacted when you make a
purchase. The system some how instantly deducts the money from your card and
updates your history on the card.

This makes them super convenient unlike stuff like Square Wallet or even
Google Wallet. You tap the card/phone on the machine and you've paid in under
1 second. No need to press anything, type any passwords, nothing.

The chips were later added to feature cell phones around 2006 so you could tap
your phone instead of a card. You can also add more cash on them from your
phone. Some Japan only Android phones also have them. Of course iPhone does
not.

Trains, busses, many taxis, vending machines, convenience stores, some
restaurants have the readers next to their registers.

Transactions are stored on the card and many laptops in Japan have built-in
readers. My 2006 Vaio did. Touch your card to some spot on the surface of the
laptop and get instant expense report for work/taxes. You can add credit to
the cards on your laptop as well.

I have no idea how they prevent fraud given they can be updated locally
(filling them with money without going through the proper channels). As for
theft, scanning people as they walk by, they do seem to need to be within 1cm
or so to read/update. I haven't looked into it though. On the other hand they
aren't tied to any other money meaning they're basically like carrying cash.
If you lose it all you lost is your money on the card and your purchase
history. There's no "account" and it's not connected to any bank or credit
card so the damage is minimized.

I have no idea if those would go over anywhere in the USA except maybe NYC,
Chicago, SF. They arguably work in Japan because so many people commute so
even if you never purchase anything they're super convenient for commuting (no
need to buy tickets). Once you have one they end up being convenient for other
things.

At the same time, I don't see anything less ever taking off in the USA. Google
Wallet etc aren't more convenient than credit cards. Felica cards are.

[http://www.sony.net/Products/felica/](http://www.sony.net/Products/felica/)

I realize I think in SF the Clipper card and in London the Oyster cards are
the same tech? But I don't think either can be used for anything other than
trains/busses.

~~~
commandar
I was only up there for a week, but Chicago's CTA Ventra cards seem to work in
this general way. Getting on the bus or train involved tapping the card on a
reader. They're also Mastercard branded with a magstripe and can be loaded up
with funds for general use, as I understand it.

I was up there last fall and they were just starting to roll them out.

------
Jormundir
Square has been criticized a lot in the recent months for putting out too many
different products. What I like best about this announcement is that it's not
just a new product, but an evolution of one they already had. This is giving
me a lot of confidence that Square really is going to nail both the business
side of transactions, and consumer side.

Square wallet was cool, but the experience was obviously incomplete. With
Order-Ahead, my routine has become super convenient. I order some food, then
go to the gym without having to bring anything-- no wallet or phone or keys.
When I'm done working out, I stop by the restaurant on the way home and pick
up my food.

I tried Order-Ahead this morning, the experience still feels incomplete, but
you can tell Square is creeping towards a much smoother way for customers to
interact with businesses.

------
michaelbuckbee
I can't sort out if this is an option already, but I think it would be a smart
move for Square to have in store kiosks (locked ipads) that let people enter
their orders directly.

This has good outcomes for both the store and Square.

For the store, having the kiosks helps reduce entry errors and waste (no order
takers missing the customer saying 'no-mayo') as well as being able to keep
less staff on hand.

On the Store's backend - tickets just come out of the printer (or show in
their view of the app) so it's not so jarring when an order-ahead entry gets
thrown into the mix. Plus each person using the Kiosk entry can get a very
natural 'up-sell' to the order ahead app.

~~~
silencio
> no order takers missing the customer saying 'no-mayo'

There's still room for mistakes where the chef/cooks/employees miss "no mayo",
and where the customer fucks up and forgets to say "no mayo" in the first
place or can't because they can't figure out how to say it. Or something
similar to that. And then customers expect you to magically read their minds
anyway.

Why do I say this? One day at my restaurant I watched someone ask for "extra
mayo" and I watched the cook put double the usual amount on there, which is
customary for "extra x" orders. Customer then took the burger apart and said
"that's not enough". Cook then doubled the mayo that's already on there. At
this point keep in mind that the burger is coated in mayo and will be dripping
it while he's eating - hell, it's already oozing mayo everywhere and it's
quite gross to look at. She started using spoons to pile it on (also because
it was already served so we can't use our regular utensils to put more mayo on
there). He then started screaming obscenities about how my cook is such a
cheapass and she's terrible at her job because who the fuck calls his burger
"extra mayo" because he wants EVEN MORE MAYO on there. At this point I was
shocked for a second but my brain finally kicked in fast enough to tell him to
apologize and leave or else I'm calling the police before he might do
something stupid like throwing food. He left his burger behind and I had the
great pleasure of letting the cook throw it out. Really, you want even more
mayo than that you tell people how much mayo you want in the first place. Or
bring your own, because there was more mayo than meat on the burger - not
kidding.

Then there's the winner of the month the other day where a customer spent
_forever_ asking for the price of a food and then the same food without fries,
and then ordered the food without fries because she couldn't afford like the
$1 extra for fries and dug around in her purse to even pay for the food by
itself. She called back two days later saying "so I ordered x with fries and i
got the food without fries on x day at x time, can i get a refund, it was x
cashier and she screwed up" \- lady, for one you were the only person that
ordered that in the couple hours around the time you gave us and we see it on
the POS, if you had a problem you should have brought it up before you even
dug in, we also STILL remember what you did because not many customers dig
around and upturn their purse on the counter to pay for a $3 item, and lastly
there is no way in hell I'm believing a random stranger like that before my
own employees that I trust to tell me the truth because I don't punish them
for most small mistakes like that.

So yeah. The customer is ... _snark_ always.... _snark_ _snort_ right.

BTW when I first took over said restaurant, Square Register actually didn't
even support modifiers and didn't for a while after that - and it's still meh
compared to other iPad systems on the market. Lots of competition and mediocre
apps makes me want to do something in this industry (and how many developers
actually can say they have experience with restaurants?) and then I stop
caring because it's "good enough"..maybe I should just go work for one of
these companies.

------
kirillzubovsky
Heh. This is a bummer. I hope they bring the Wallet back insider the Order app
or elsewhere. I've been using it all the time, with merchants that accept
Walle, and love it.

Unfortunately, it seems that only "progressive" merchants are the ones who
enable pay-by-phone.

There was actually a merchant who told me they've disconnected the feature,
because "people who live nearby, would often appear on their screen, when they
passed by." I thought this was pretty much retarded, given those same people
were their regulars, but whatever.

It's just a little sad to see cool technology being dropped.

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thrownaway2424
Wallet wasn't really intrusive enough. It should have been able to detect
proximity to the merchant and raise and Android notification to make the first
payment easier and to make enabling autopay easier. But unfortunately I don't
think their location detection, or the features offered by the platforms were
up to the task. Even for the businesses I frequent and for which I have auto
pay enabled, half the time it didn't work. Eventually the novelty wore off and
I reverted to cash. It's better for the merchant anyway.

------
bitsm
From the outside, it's hard to dispute that Wallet didn't have enough "utility
value", but Square didn't seem to do much to market Wallet to merchants.

Almost none of the local merchants I tried using Wallet with knew about the
feature, and some merchants didn't show up in it at all (they were using
Square to run simple cash transactions -- i.e., no product catalog entered
into Square).

------
uptown
Where is Square's major market penetration? I'm guessing SF and NYC, but in
New York City I think I've only seen it used in one store, and even there I'm
not sure the system they were using was Square. I know they also ran a trial
handling payments in city taxis, but that trial only tested 13 cabs, and was
pulled shortly after starting.

~~~
natrius
Anecdotally, about a third of small businesses (cafes, food trucks, etc.) use
Square here in Austin. Another third use PayPal or Intuit. The rest use
something else. Square has plenty of retailers here, and cab drivers often use
Square to pay 2.9% instead of the ~5% their companies charge them to accept
cards.

~~~
thrownaway2424
That sounds like a pretty biased sample. I'd be surprised if square has more
than five percent of the market in any identifiable geographic region, even
SF, hell, even within a mile of their headquarters.

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jgalt212
Square Wallet failed to take off besides getting some nice air time during a
60 Minutes piece Jack Dorsey.

There should be a kickstarter for media coverage. e.g. this tech is so neat
and has such a good chance of being transformative that 60 Mintues, or some
other big media outlet should to a 15 minute piece on it.

------
timdorr
This could be cool. We've got a coffee shop in our building that has a Square
POS system (which is itself pretty neat). In theory, I'll be able to order by
drink before I get there. That's pretty neat!

Their POS system combined with an easy way to enable online ordering is a huge
win for the retailer.

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droob
I used Square Wallet all the time, and was frequently told, "That was the
first time I've done that!"

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thisjepisje
Bitcoin, anyone?

~~~
hnnewguy
The _vast_ majority of people have no problems with the multitude of payment
options already available (from cash to credit to debit to Square, etc) and
have no use whatsoever for Bitcoin. Sorry.

~~~
thisjepisje
No need to apologize, I didn't intend to start a discussion on bitoin's
usefulness. It's just that a system like this would be very handy for those of
us who do like btc.

