Square’s Latest Move – Into Appointments

Proving that there’s life beyond payments, Square on Monday (Aug. 11) introduced Square Appointments, which is designed for small businesses to help schedule appointments with customers.

“Over the past few months, Square has been testing this service, which will now become a key part to the web-based Square dashboard, which is where merchants today are able to manage other aspects of their business, including orders, sales reports, staff and inventory,” TechCrunch reported.

Individual business owners will pay $30/month, which increases to $50 per month for two to five employees and $90 per month for unlimited. “The move into this space was largely to address a painpoint for a lot of its sellers. The company heard they were worried they were missing out on appointments because so many consumers today are booking these (appointments) online.”

It’s an interesting move if—and only if—Square can make the connection back to payments. If the service cleanly integrates payment with a customer arriving for his/her appointment, this could get very interesting indeed.