Square Overhauls Its Marketing to Bag Larger Retailers
Square may have unveiled a new, sleeker reader yesterday, but the real news is that the company today changed its marketing approach to attract larger retailers.
The shift can be seen in the company’s relaunch of its site today to give greater prominence to its online marketplace, Square Market. The tagline on the old site, “Start accepting cards today,” was replaced by the more business-oriented “Sell more with Square.” The Visa card on the old site was also replaced by a generic, unbranded card.
In November, Square overhauled its pricing structure to court larger businesses, and this site redesign follows that path.
The old site contained links to Square Wallet and Square Market at the top of the page. The new site features Square Market prominently immediately below the fold and tucks Square Wallet into a tab called Menu.
It should be noted that Square last month started talking about doing an initial public offering.
It appears that Square is emphasizing its marketplace where retailers can sell online in a venue controlled by Square, at the expense of its mobile wallet. The mobile wallet allows a user to pay for items at the point of sale just by saying his name and showing his face. Its primary venue is currently Starbucks. Square also powers the Starbucks app, perhaps the most successful mobile wallet app on the market.
Square’s recent moves have been introducing Square Cash, a P2P service that analysts characterized as a means of getting more cards on file to sweeten the pot for retailers to sign up with Square. It also purchased a photo-sharing app called Viewfinder, which was likely more about the engineering talent Viewfinder possessed than its technology or customer base.
Nick Holland, senior analyst with Javelin Strategy & Research, said it is time for Square to grow up.
But he also noted that Square will not be jettisoning Wallet altogether, even if it is failing to see wide adoption “Ultimately, Square needs both Market and Wallet,” Holland said. “The cash cow card swipe business may not survive the shift to EMV in the US and the associated costs in hardware upgrade.” The most important point will be netting larger clients: “They’re going to rapidly need to add larger retailers to their roster in the next few years,” Holland said.
It looks like Square is moving in just that direction.
