Square for Retail reviews

I love the convenience of swiping a card, I love that it pays out quickly (far quicker than over my website) and it keeps peoples information from past square interactions they've done so you can send them a receipt.

I would love to have an offline setting so it could save the cards and charge when you reconnect. I don't always have a connection at the markets I'm working. I'm working currently with the smallest square phone connection so I also look forward to updating to the version that accepts debit cards too

Square easily handles transactions for our church book stall. It provides up-to-date inventory and online reporting for tax purposes. You can easily add sales, promotions, and other tailor-made functions.

What I like least about this software is the hardware. We utilize the Square Terminal, which was attractive as a portable register in that it takes credit cards via swipe and chip, but also prints receipts. The optional scanner is even nicer to use. However, for the scanner to work, the terminal must be plugged into an outlet, which robs it of its portable nature. Additionally, adding inventory via the Terminal is cumbersome and slow. Imagine typing in inventory titles using a small smart phone that is slower than a smart phone.

Simple enough to add products and check out.

After using square POS for a few years, we switched to Shopify bc we also had an online store and needed to consolidate systems. We continued to pay for Square for a year although we were no longer using the system for anything other than to access old orders. When our office manager canceled the paid account, Square no longer allowed us to access the account at all. Our office manager spent several hours and finally got access. We were not informed that all other user accounts would be closed and that the only way to access old records would be through the owner email account. I called square to ask about being locked out of my account and the customer service rep ([SENSITIVE CONTENT]?) was incredibly rude, unhelpful, and sarcastic. I'm happy that we no longer use Square solely based on the customer service. Additionally, the processing fees went up drastically for us when we began offering one CBD product (THC free) out of several hundred products in our store.

We use this for merchandise sales in the gym, primarily for retail like hoodies and T-shirts. It’s also great for use offsite, anytime we might be doing a pop-up event and selling merchandise there as well. Very easy for both the consumer and seller to use.

I haven’t had any issues with this software. Being on both the end of the seller and customer, it provides a very seamless experience.

The Square plugin was super easy to use and fit most devices. The application is simple and adjustments were easy to make changes to. Paperless receipts are the best way to go about transactions.

The price was a little high for the software. Using the plugin had its disadvantages if you use a phone and that phone has a protective case. The application sometimes froze.

User friendly platform to load your storefront with products. Present templates that are also customizable to your liking. Integration of an inventory model to track what you have left on hand.

Have a plan for your products of offering multiple size and/or color options before entering on the site. It's much harder to edit and change the categories once it's set. Know what your page intent is as well ahead of schedule.

I love how easy everything is to setup and use. No crazy long instructions to try to figure out and there aren’t multiple steps for just one thing. So user friendly. Love that everything is in one. Checkout features, inventory, clocking, card processing everything. They offer so much more too than just what I use. Amazing!

The cost of hardware is kind of pricey but honest the value and quality is there so I can’t really complain!

This was one of the least expensive options for taking credit card payments at events. When we signed up we even got 1 credit card reader for free. (Note that you do need reader 1 fore android phones and 1 for iphones). It was very easy to sign up and we got our card readers very quickly. The software is easy to use. I like that you can have multiple users. Also, a lot of people recognize and trust square so they have no issues providing their cards for scanning.

We haven't used the service/software for a long enough time to encounter any major bugs. Some cards (older, worn down) have a harder time scanning than others but that is a card issue, not an issue with the scanner.

It was easy to setup and start using when you need it. You connect it to your phone and use it as a normal POS you would in a store

Support isn't always easy to get a hold of and it wouldn't integrate it with our system. This is more for small business use and not for tracking and reporting on analytics.

We use square daily to keep track of sold items / integrate inventory / keep track of customers purchases.

We do not have any cons that come to mind!

Square pretty much takes all the leg work out of setting up a POS system for any business, but I'll speak specifically as a small business owner.
-If you're a first time small business owner, save yourself the headache and just go with Square; you might be able to get a lower merchant fees rate with another service, but then you have to deal with the hassle of setting up a separate POS register, possibly a separate app you'd have to setup on an iPad if that's what you plan to use, setting up the merchant account, etc. With Square, it's all wrapped into one easy setup.
-Easy to setup on an iPad, create a catalog of items to sell and process payments
-The item catalog screen is very user friendly and customizable
-Doing refunds is easy
-Reports are incredibly easy to run
-Square integrates with QuickBooks online, so it's been seamless to link all my Square sales to my accounting books and makes my tax filings much more accurate
-Creating invoices is also easy and gives a professional look to my invoice emails
-Ability to create forms that require signature, so no need for another digital signature service (unless you need more details, see Cons below)

-I wish you could have the same virtual terminal on the iPad on desktop as well. There have been times when my iPad crapped out and had to use my laptop, and it's not the same experience.
-If you're using the signature service for forms that you need to send out, it only records the signature itself and nothing else. Either it's a user error on my part, or they need to update it, but it needs more customization.

I love that I can use my Square terminal anywhere. Whether I am at an event or in the back room, I can get paid.

I do find that sometimes the payouts can be confusing

Square is a payment processing system with supporting systems such as Point of Sale. We initially did the trial period to determine if it meets our requirements. It was very user-friendly and easy to use. The training was easy for the staff. If we had any issues, customer support from Square was always available. Sometimes we did have a short wait, but issues were always resolved.

Square didn't have a many features as other Point of Sales software. Reporting and analytics were pretty limited. The software did have some, but not as much as we needed.

Support was available, but sometimes we had to wait to get help.

Square is free and easy to maneuver. With no experience, Square appointments made it easy to start my business and manage it. Customers can book on the platform and I can manage appointments and inventory, as well as run my website.

Square is easily the first choice for anyone trying to start a business. However, some features may seem a challenge to access without any guidance or guide. An example is learning about taxes being applied the first time I used the POS system. Coincidentally, the party I was conducting business with was a tax-exempt business and I had no idea how to bypass the tax.

Use this product for just 6 weeks, was very very easy to learn and had people using it that were generally not good at computers. They also had an easy time using it. Easy to change product description at one location or across all locations. Really enjoyed the reports, easy to manipulate

Really really challenging to use on a ipad for scheduling and adjusting people's time cards. Was very slow and would regularly crash. (This was specific for this app, all other functions on the ipad worked fine and quickly).
Online orders, loved that when they came through you could update the progressed. HATED that you could not undo it. Would like to see the function that you could go forward and backwards, not just forwards.
Online orders - customers would enter address online and it would go to the shop "closest" to their location. However this was closest as the crow flies, not closest for driving directions. Would love to see it function off of driving directions. Frequently, a people would make a curbside order and they would end up going to the second or third closest location to where they lived due to this

Super easy to set up, easy to process payments, easy to generate receipts, and easy to track sales. Plus it's a very reasonable cost and lets you be much more accessible as a seller - no more juggling tons of loose cash!

It can sometimes be glitchy, and obviously only works if there's a good internet connection. I had some initial problems with my chip reader that forced me to hand-enter a lot of cards, which is time consuming. But on the plus side, that option exists for when there's a problem with the reader.

I appreciate how Square has so easily integrated into our church's in-house coffee shop and also our church's book resource center (like a small book store). Square just makes the running of our coffee shop and book resource center so EASY!

The only drawback that I can see is that, in our church, we have a population of individuals who may be unfamiliar with the idea of swiping a credit card through a device attached to an iPad... I can see how the "newness" of this tool might be daunting to some individuals (and thus potentially hinder them from using it), but on the whole, this is a very SMALL concern. So far, the "pros" have FAR outweighed the "cons"!

The thing that I liked most about this particular software is the fact that it makes it possible for you receive any form of payment no matter where you are. It's simply the epitome of convenience.

There were no cons with this particular software; and I can guarantee you that you would have an extremely hard time finding any as well.

Square for Retail adds a professional look to any small business. It helps raise the sales of your business while finding unique ways to reduce costs. It is a highly customizable app that can be tailored to the specific needs of your small business.

The only thing that I dislike is the processing fee payment structure that they offer. It is a bit higher than other platforms, but the convenience and ease-of-use of the platform makes it worth it.

Square is great for small business it allows the merchant to just pay a fee when a card is swiped rather than a monthly service fee and the percentage charged for swiping a card. They do have an inventory tracking system which is great if that is the only platform you use for inventory. You also get the benefit of free hardware if you choose not to purchase the Square POS system. Square deposits are quick, no holding funds for long periods of time like PayPal. Overall Square is very versatile and we have been very happy with it.

The inventory tracking system is cumbersome and doesn't work nicely with QBO or Shopify. It cannot sync with our Shopify store which ultimately means we have to keep both platforms updated which is a real pain.

I use Square almost daily for my coffee roasting company. Its easy to use, easy to train others to use, and easy to customize for my ever changing inventory.

Sometimes I wish the Square app had the same functionality as the Square website. For example, invoices are easier to work with on the web vs. working with them on the app. You can't print invoices from the app, yet you can from the web interface. Just little things like that. Not huge, but minor annoyances.

Square is an easy payment processing solution that we have been able to integrate into our retail store operations. I appreciate that it can keep track of inventory, but the process of adding items can be overwhelming. It's big strength is in it's reporting functions and it's ability to easily track YoY.

We have a lot of glitches with the program, despite updates. We will have to restart and re-login. It is also difficult to add individual inventory items. Also the register display format is not customizable, you are limited to the defaults.

The ease of implementation of the square system was excellent. Once implemented, managing and controlling items and inventory is simple and efficient. The POS system is easy to manage and use, easy to train our staff on, and customizable for all of our needs. The reporting system gives us all the information we need to summarize our sales data, run sales tax reports, and more.

There is not much to not like. For our small business the software works wonderfully, if we had a large variety of items the POS system might get more complicated, but not for us.

The software is user friendly, quick and easy. I love their simple and straight forward layout. They literally contributed to my business growing!!!!

I can't think of any negative thing to say, except at the beginning I had some problems that turned out to do with poor internet connection.

It is easy to set up and use. It is affordable and the customers never have a problem with it.

I wish they took bitcoin and the square terminal has quite a few quirks that should be worked out before charging that much.