Shopify’s New Card Reader Targets Square’s Market

When Square first rolled out its card reader system, which allowed users to turn a decent tablet or smartphone into a credit-card-accepting point of sale system, it opened up a host of new opportunities. As such, it was one of the leading standards in the field, without a lot of competition. That’s been changing in recent years, most lately with Shopify, as it recently rolled out its own card reader system designed to do, well, most everything that Square’s system does.

Set to work on either dip or swipe, and able to provide either 400 or 700 such uses respectively on a single charge, the Shopify system offers Bluetooth connectivity to a device to allow it to carry on transactions initiated via the card reader.

Shopify’s been planning this release since April, when it introduced the device building up to pre-orders back in July. Now, the device is live and ready to go for any retailer that has at least an iPhone 5, an iPad running iOS 9, or an Android device that runs version 4.4 or better.

This isn’t the first such incursion we’ve seen into Square’s market so far; both Intuit and PayPal have similar devices on hand, and even these are just some of the biggest names that have the device. New merchants will be able to get the device for nothing, but merchants already in the Shopify fold will need to shell out $29.

It’s a good idea, but the only problem here is that it was a good idea back when Square started doing it first. It was a good idea when PayPal and Intuit and all the others stepped in. Giving small-scale merchants an easy way to accept payment cards is a welcome development by most any standard and will be well-received as everyone from small-time craft vendors to farmer’s market retailers and beyond takes advantage. Now, however, we’re getting to a point where there are a lot of competitors, and not much distinguishing one from another.

Shopify is likely to have a tough time here getting new users thanks to the sheer abundance of competitors. Only time will tell how it all works, but Shopify may not last long on this front.