[pbreit]

The Square dongle is the most brilliant customer acquisition tool in the history of marketing to small businesses. But Square probably needs to also offer a swiping solution that makes more sense in a permanent location like a physical store. And it should also acknowledge that customers are going to ask for a paper receipt for some period of time. Not every retailer is Apple.

Getting rid of the flat fee that traditionally accompanies credit card transactions was also a smart move to further open up new credit card processing markets.

The Card Case? I'm not sold in its current state. This article, like pretty much every article describing the latest "wouldn't it be great" payment product story, describes a process that sounds quite a bit worse than a simple swipe of a 2mm thick plastic card.

[sliverstorm]

I wouldn't say they "got rid of the flat fee". They are offering an alternative. The flat fee is not about to go the way of the dinosaur- it is still the more favorable option for clients processing large transactions.

[pbreit]

I was referring to the $0.15 that Square used to charge for each swiped payment in addition to the 2.75%.