Articles from Square

Square, the technology company that makes commerce and financial services easy and accessible, today released early insights from its forthcoming annual Future of Commerce report, providing a unique look at the restaurant, retail, and beauty industries across the US, Canada, UK, and Australia.

Today, Square announced the winners for its second edition of Square 50, an annual awards program dedicated to championing businesses that are changing the entrepreneurial game. Honourees for this year’s Square 50 include nine Canadian businesses, including DON’YA Ukraine’s Kitchen in Edmonton, a restaurant run entirely by Ukrainian volunteers to help those escaping the war, Roll This Way in Toronto, sushi caterers offering kits and interactive classes, Sharecuterie in Winnipeg, an Indigenous and woman-led charcuterie board business, and Breakscape Entertainment in Ottawa, offering archery games and escape rooms for a great night out. The full Square 50 class of 2024 can be seen here.

Today, Square released the latest edition of its Quarterly Restaurant Report, which uses data across Square’s food and beverage sellers to examine dining trends, along with shifts in consumer spending and restaurant wages.

Today, Square announced the launch of Forward, a business accelerator program designed to help Black and Latino retail entrepreneurs obtain the capital, coaching, and products they need to succeed.

Today, Square announced that its entire ecosystem of more than 35 products and services is now available in Spanish to sellers in the United States. The more than 4.65 million Hispanic-owned businesses in the United States will now be able to use Square’s end-to-end business solutions in either English or Spanish, including key products like Square Banking to unlock access to financial services and Square for Restaurants to enable seamless, bilingual communication between front- and back-of-house staff.

Today, Square marks another key milestone in its integration of Afterpay, extending buy now, pay later (BNPL) functionality to its millions of in-person sellers in the United States and Australia. Just three months after first bringing Afterpay into the Square ecosystem with e-commerce integration, Square and Afterpay moved swiftly to unlock the ability for sellers using any Square point of sale software – Square Point of Sale, Square for Retail, Square Appointments, or Square for Restaurants – to now offer Afterpay across online and in-person commerce.

Today, Square released its second annual “Future of Commerce” report that reveals how retailers, restaurateurs – and for the first time, beauty businesses – continue to evolve and adapt their business models through the pandemic and whatever comes next. Square developed its Future of Commerce report to provide a look inside what’s working, what’s not, and what businesses are doing to prepare for the year ahead.

Square Financial Services today launches the 21 Squared Grant Initiative in partnership with the Community Foundation of Utah. The grant program will award microgrants of $2,100 to 21 501(c)(3) nonprofits throughout Utah focused on community development efforts that align with Square Financial Services’ core values and priorities for community reinvestment.

Today, Square announced a new integration with Google Merchant Center that makes it easier for Square sellers to reach new customers through direct product listings on Google. Square for Retail merchants can now have products from their businesses populate right alongside items from other ecommerce stores of all sizes, helping smaller sellers to increase reach and revenue by uncovering new customers buying online.

Today, Square KDS is launching as a subscription, making the powerful kitchen display software available to all restaurants - including those that don’t need a POS to take orders or for advanced functionality, and simply need a KDS to manage and fulfill orders from online ordering and delivery partners.

Today, at Square’s fifth annual partner and developer conference, Square Unboxed, the company announced three new developer tools, including early access of the long-awaited Snippets API for Square Online.

Today Square announced the ability for sellers to offer alcohol delivery through Square Online’s on-demand delivery feature. Now, restaurants, bars, breweries, bottle shops, convenience stores, or any seller using Square Online can offer their customers the option to purchase alcohol from their website and have the order fulfilled through a delivery partner. For many restaurant and retail sellers, this offering can provide a lucrative, nearly passive, new revenue stream without the costly overhead associated with building out a delivery fleet or hiring and training additional staff.

Square announced today that it will host Square Unboxed, it’s fifth annual partner and developer conference on May 13, 2021.

Today, Square announced the availability of new inventory management features for Square for Retail sellers, to help automate and improve one of the most challenging, but critical, processes businesses of all sizes face. New features like Easy Item Create, Quick Inventory Counting, and Smart Stock Alerts provide sellers greater control over their inventory management, and improve efficiency with better ways to create, count, and reorder inventory.

Today, Square announced its participation as a technology partner in the Restaurant Revitalization Fund (RRF), a $28.6 billion grant program administered by the Small Business Administration (SBA). The RRF will provide free monetary awards to restaurants and other food and beverage businesses that sustained financial losses from the COVID-19 pandemic.