Square eCommerce Wakes up to Shopify Threat?

eCommerce and Retail Talk
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Square, who virtually invented the mobile POS appears finally to look at going slightly up-market with their offerings. A recent interview with Christine Loh there (who was formerly VP Product at Weebly).

I do think Square will continue to be strong in POS, but Shopify is a challenger here they would be wise not to ignore.

Shopify’s POS business is growing rapidly – from a small base. And many of their merchants are looking at brick and mortar – although most would be wise to check out wholesale before building out their own stores.

I am not convinced Square’s eCommerce business is growing rapidly.
This gives Shopify the advantage.

I felt about 2 years ago that Square had an opening and was the only company that could challenge Shopify. Nope. It seemed to me they didn’t even try.

Square’s says “larger businesses” are those generating more than $500k / year in payments GMV. These are still pretty small businesses.

What is Jack Dorsey really doing with Square? Is it going to be another squandered opportunity like Twitter?

Personally, I have zero confidence that Square will challenge the established eCommerce players.

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I think and continue to think that Square/Block or whatever its called have decided to be a generalist and offer their solutions to everyone instead of specialization. Yes - Shopify should be on their radar - I just continue to believe that they are not interested in the sector.

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Kind of a moot point now - they missed their window. This Square Exec not sure what they are doing. Even Squarespace has a nice little product.

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