Square Up Your Credit Card Processing Fees 

Jack Dorsey, co-founder of Twitter, brings a new technology into our lives called Square. 

Square is a credit card reading device about the size of a quarter, which can be inserted into the iPhone, Android phones, and iPad to take credit card payments quickly and easily.  Signing up for Square is simple and more importantly it's free.    

First you need to go onto either www.squareup.com or download the square app on your compatible device to sign up.  Here they will ask for various pieces of personal information, such as your bank account number so they can transfer funds, but they take security very seriously. They have a Tier 1 PCI Compliant ranking in addition to being VeriSign Trusted.

For merchants in specific, a credit card processing service may not always be the most sensible option.  Some such cases are for companies that tend to have smaller transactions because they incur higher rates or for those vendors who do not have a fixed location.  Coffee shops, for example, suffer from high processing fees because the majority of their customers spend under $10.  With Square, the rate is fixed at 2.57% and there are no hidden costs or costs to sign up.  In fact, there is not even a cost for the device and any additional devices that can be justified are free of charge.  With only $2.57 at stake for a $100 transaction, the rate is extremely favorable.  They accept any Visa, MasterCard, Discover, and American Express cards at the same rate.  Also, when the customer either does not have their card on them or the magnetic strip is worn out, the app will allow for manual entries of credit card numbers.  For this service the rate goes up to 3.5% and a flat rate of 15 cents per transaction.

To be clear, anyone can use the Square device and it is not just for merchants.  An example of when it may be appropriate to use Square outside of business related matters is when someone makes a purchase but intends to split the cost amongst others.  That person can easily use the square device to divide the purchase up using the app's calculator and then charge everyone his or her rightful amount.  The reality is that most people do not carry exact change on them, if they even carry cash at all. 

Ashley Ferremi

An App to Please Marketers and Consumers Alike

For those who are looking to market their products to virtually any person with a cell phone or tablet, there is an app for you.  ScanLife is an app that allows people to scan UPC, QR, and most 2D barcodes from their mobile device.  These barcodes yield a vast amount of information once processed through the ScanLife server. 

The remarkable feature about ScanLife is that it provides a central hub to access information about a product to a consumer who is interested in learning more about that specific product.  It is incredibly easy to use and supported by all cell phone carriers. Upon finding a barcode on either an advertisement or on the packaging, enter the ScanLife app and click on the link for scanning a barcode.  This will redirect to the phone's camera and after taking the picture, the Internet will open with a list of information regarding the product. If the user's device is not compatible with downloading the ScanLife app, then he or she can take a picture of the barcode and email or text it to ScanLife who will respond with the link to the information.

This app has the potential to broaden a business's global audience as well as providing easier and more accessible information to its consumers.  The Internet page that the barcode scans directs to may contain the link to the Facebook account, Twitter account, nutritional information, comparison prices, reviews, and coupons.  The consumer can even buy certain products directly from Amazon or 25 other retailers.  Additionally, users of ScanLife can create their own barcodes for use on advertisements.

Beyond marketing a product, ScanLife provides powerful information to companies about who is searching for their product.  Some information they receive is how often people scan their barcode, when they do so, and where those consumers are from.  With over a million users on ScanLife, that data is very significant.

Ashley Ferremi