Square Online Checkout quickly generates a checkout link or button for any of your goods, services, memberships, and more. Whether it’s your first product or your newest offering, you can post the link anywhere online — email, text message, an existing website, or your social media channels.

Alise Bailey, Editor

Square , May, 2020

How to Get Paid with
Square Online Checkout

Whether we’re buying groceries, books, or a lamp, eCommerce is ubiquitous to our daily lives — especially in recent months. If you own a brick-and-mortar business, you may have begun the shift to bring your business online.

But we know that what works for one business may not work for another. That’s why we’re introducing Square Online Checkout, an online checkout link or button that allows you to accept payments without having to build an online store.

Square Online Checkout quickly generates a checkout link or button for any of your goods, services, memberships, and more. Whether it’s your first product or your newest offering, you can post the link anywhere online — email, text message, an existing website, or your social media channels.

Why use an online checkout button?

eCommerce isn’t going anywhere, and an online checkout link is a quick way to tap into the digital economy. Adobe’s Digital Economy Index recently found that consumers’ digital purchasing power (the amount consumers can buy with a set amount of money over a period of time) has increased 20% since 2014. Consumers are shopping online with a fervor, increasingly looking to purchase goods and services from their laptops and mobile devices.

Ride the eCommerce wave

In March 2020, the digital economy grew faster than the economy as a whole. According to Statista, in 2020, global eCommerce sales are projected to reach over $4.2 billion. Consumers are looking for convenience, and online shopping fits the bill. Taking your business online ensures your products and services are more accessible for new and current customers, and can increase sales and brand visibility.

Protect your business

With the rise of eCommerce comes the unfortunate increase of card-not-present (CNP) fraud. Juniper Research forecasts that the annual CNP fraud growth rate will rise 14% annually through 2023, and a recent report by Verizon shows that 43% of data breaches target small businesses.

When you use Square Online Checkout (or any Square product), data security, dispute management, and fraud prevention are all included in the flat processing rate, to help your business combat fraud from bad actors, in person and online.

How to use Square Online Checkout:

Once you’ve created a checkout link or button, you can share it on whichever channels you choose.

On social media

A checkout link can be added to your Instagram bio, in a direct message, or within a Facebook post. This allows you to sell featured items and services or provide a way for supporters to donate via your social media channels.

Justin James Muir, a portrait photographer, teaches in-person photography classes. In response to COVID-19, he shifted to an online class offering. His followers can use the link in his profile to purchase the class.

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