Square is making it easier for businesses to keep track of their inventory, facilitate transactions in less-than-ideal conditions, and schedule pickups on orders for customers.
In a press release, Square announced a trio of new features for business owners that use the mobile payment startup’s services: Square Pickup, Offline Mode, and Inventory Tracking.
Last month, Square introduced the ability to pay with Bitcoin according to TNW, a virtual currency that’s rising in popularity.
Square Pickup
Geared towards ordering food for pickup, Square Pickup functions as a pre-order service, allowing customers to purchase and schedule when they want to pick up their items. “Research shows that food and beverage is the second most popular category among purchases made on smartphones,” the company said. “And studies show that more people are preferring to use their smartphones to pay for their purchases.” The Pickup feature is integrated with Square Register, and charges a “competitive” 8% processing fee.
Square Inventory
Square Inventory will allow businesses to track their stock when selling both in person and online. Square says sellers can “manage their inventory in their web dashboard, including setting up stock alerts so they are never caught off guard by low inventory.”
Square Offline
Square Offline allows businesses to use Square services even when an Internet connection is spotty or temporarily nonexistent. Payments made during the offline period would be processed as soon as a connection has been reestablished.
The added features are following some poor financial results from the company, which posted a $100 million loss in 2013. Rumors have been swirling that the company was in talks about being acquired, namely by Google, but those have been mostly dispelled.