Square, the mobile payment company that was co-founded by the creator of Twitter, recently paraded their technology that could very well see cash registers being rendered as obsolete in the future – helping save the environment as well since there are no paper receipts left for you to deal with. Some might greet this news with cheers, while others who prefer old school record keeping methods might want to reconsider since it would take a paradigm shift for them to get used to a digital format. Relying on Square’s free software and credit card reader, merchants are able to turn an iPad into a cash register so that it can accept payments and receive real-time analytics of their sales.
As for customers, what is there in it for them? Well, they can always keep a virtual tab at their favorite stores – basically, once you’ve swiped a card at a participating store, you link the card to a Square account. From thence, the merchant can receive payment by tapping on your photograph from within the Square software, while all receipts will be e-mailed to you directly.
Jack Dorsey has this to say, “Today we want to take away all of this clutter, all of the paper, all of the mess, and get rid of the takeout menu, get rid of the loyalty card, get rid of the receipts, and merge all of this mess and replace it with one clean digital card.”
Sounds great, but make sure you have an electronic backup of your receipts just in case the untoward happens.
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