May 19, 2010 Musicians: SIGN UP FOR SQUARE RIGHT NOW
This post originally appeared on Brenden Mulligan’s blog on May 11, 2010. Brenden is the founder of ArtistData and can be found on twitter @bmull. He is in no way associated with the company Square.
Musicians have a lot to deal with while on the road. One of those things is the organization and sale of CDs, T-Shirts, and other merch. These days, it’s the ticket and merch sales that pay for the gas, the new drumsticks and guitar strings, the food and drinks, and every other expense on tour. So musicians have to be smart about making as much money on the road as possible.
Today, an exciting startup exited private beta that I believe every musician who tours should sign up for immediately. It’s called Square, and I’ve been publicly excited about it for a while now. At the helm is the guy who invented Twitter, which turned out to be a pretty good idea. The goal of the company is to make accepting credit cards dead simple.
Let me break it down. Download the app, create an account, order a free card reader, start accepting payments. Yep. That simple. And the rates are incredibly fair with no contract or monthly fee. That means if you don’t like it, you can just stop using it. There’s no reason not to try it.
So back to the musicians: By allowing your fans to pay with credit cards, you’ll sell more merch. Yes, you’ll have to pay a fee that isn’t present when only accepting cash, but you’ll sell more merch. So let’s update the process I posted before. Download the app, create an account, order a free card reader, start accepting payments, sell more merch than before.
The YouTube video is below. Watch it and then go download the app. Seriously.
Unfortunately, Square is only currently available in the US.
Reader Comments (6)
Although I spend most of my time here disagreeing with people - you're right. This is a relative no-brainer. Glad one of those finally happened in 2010.
I had been watching this company since they first announced this last year and the minute it was available I signed up. Still waiting for the reader.
Seems a lot of people are still waiting for the readers. They seem kind of slow on that end because a lot of people are complaining about the wait.
When you take into consideration that they're sending these things out with no cost to you... can't complain too much.
How exactly is the credit card charge included within the service? How is the payment plan set up for the distributers.
we ordered ours last week as soon as we found out, other cellswipers and manual entries have always been too expensive to justify the cost. and mailing paper slips that get declined after the merch is gone sucked. we are super excited about this. I'll post an update comment once we get the reader and give an exact turnaround time.
Totally. I agree it's a no brainer. And Mark, a lot of the financial split can be found on their page. Look at the bottom of this one: https://squareup.com/features
Brenden
WE NEED THIS IN CANADA! Plllleeeeeeeaaaaaaaaaasssssseeeeeee.......