If you’ve been on social media today, you’ve likely heard that Starbucks will be partnering with Square, the mobile payments start-up currently used by various small businesses. Needless to say, Starbucks will be their largest account by far, but less obvious is that this is the tipping point towards widespread adoption of mobile payments.
Why will this deal be the one to help normalize mobile payments? Well, there are three key reasons why Starbucks in particular is going to be the corporate thought leader that makes us all feel more comfortable with mobile payments. It’s familiar, it’s low-risk and it’s routine.
Familiar
If you’re anything like many of us at bv02, your favourite coffee shop sees you almost every day. The baristas become your early morning friends, know you by name and notice when you switch drinks. When it comes time for a full roll-out of Square’s capabilities at Starbucks, in which your phone’s GPS signals to Starbucks that you’re in the store and you only need to confirm your name with the barista, who will see a picture of you on their screen, you trust them with that responsibility. Sure, they could charge you with whatever they want in theory, but they’re your morning friends. There’s trust in that level of familiarity.
Low-Risk
Maybe you hadn’t thought of that angle yet, and maybe you had, but Square likely has safeguards in place to ensure that won’t happen. Additionally, the great thing about Starbucks introducing mobile payments is that it’s low risk. This is Starbucks we’re talking about, not the Apple store. The worst that could happen is an accidental $5 coffee being charged to your account, which is much more manageable than an accidental MacBook Air charged to your account.
Routine
There’s no better way to get comfortable with a new tool than to use it every day. While this might only apply to those of us who frequent Starbucks on a regular basis, that’s still a sizeable portion of Starbucks visitors, and those visitors will quickly become accustomed to this new method of payment. I remember the first time I scanned the existing mobile payment barcode from my Starbucks iPhone app and how excited I was; generally speaking, I’m now so used to scanning it that it’s become the new normal. If another store I visited frequently offered an application with similar functionality, I’d adopt it in a heartbeat, because I’m so used to it. This will happen with Square, too.
So while industry reports state that mobile payments are still three to five years away from critical mass in North America, Starbucks’ new partnership with Square will ensure that it’s much closer to the three year mark, if not beforehand. Let’s just hope they expand to Canada as soon as possible.
Looking for more information on this deal, or other angles? The New York Times has a comprehensive article detailing the deal and its implications, while TechCrunch looks at how this will help Square expand internationally (which, as a Canadian-based company, we think can’t happen fast enough) and PC Mag discusses how this will help Square win the emerging mobile payments space.
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