Square introduces new APIs to extend ecommerce offering

The collection of APIs – split into two products, Square API for ecommerce and Square API for point-of-sale – aims to enable users to integrate point-of-sale or ecommerce solutions with Square for secure payment acceptance.

Square claims this move makes it the first payments company in Australia to own all three of in-store, mobile and online payments. A key marketing message for the company is that this means businesses can manage all online and offline payments for the entire business in one dashboard.

Businesses will be able to accept payments through any channel and gain a single, holistic view of their business, to reduce complexity of having to navigate numerous disparate systems, claims the company.

Square integrates with website building companies including BigCommerce, Weebly, Ecwid, WooCommerce, Magento and Wix, enabling the use of pre-existing ecommerce shopfronts while accepting the Square gateway. Online and point-of-sale sales will show in a Square Dashboard.

More than that, integrating Square into platforms will be free, with online payments accepted using the Square API for ecommerce charged at 2.2% per transaction for Visa, MasterCard and Amex. In-person payments using Square hardware via apps integrated with the API for point-of-sale incur a 1.9% charge.

The move into ecommerce brings Square further into competition with PayPal, which has recently introduced hardware for mobile payments.