Square, Postmates Team For Merchant Delivery Option

Square, the digital payments company, has inked a deal with delivery startup Postmates to provide an on-demand delivery for Square small business customers.

According to a report, the companies announced that Square merchants can now offer customers the ability to have items delivered via Postmates. Merchants can add Postmates to the dashboard of their existing POS and give customers the choice to schedule deliveries or get them on-demand.

“By partnering with Square to offer on-demand delivery, millions of small, local businesses are now able to do something that was not previously available,” James Butts, SVP for product at Postmates, told the news outlet. “With access to an active fleet of over 300,000 Postmates, local sellers can deliver entirely new experiences to their customers – without the need to hire a developer – while focusing on what they do best: growing their business.”

The executive said the delivery option could be attractive to consumers who had purchased an item but didn’t want to carry it home, or to a food purveyor that didn’t have a delivery staff. In an interview with MarketWatch, Butts said businesses shouldn’t lose a sale because they don’t have the ability to deliver. The offering also gives Square customers a new way to compete with larger rivals.

This isn’t Square’s first foray into providing small businesses with a delivery option. It provides the service via a series of acquisitions of delivery platforms it has made in recent years. The partnership with Postmates expands the offering in a dramatic fashion.

Postmates, which is gearing up to go public, is operational in 3,500 cities across the country, with 300,000 couriers delivering food and goods. In April alone, it added 1,000 cities to its roster. The company says it is available to 70 percent of households in the U.S., up from 26 percent in the middle of last year, underscoring the growth seen in the on-demand delivery market.