Square’s App Marketplace Connects 100K Sellers

Square has reached a milestone.

As part of larger story on the future of the credit card processing company, TechCrunch shares that Square’s App Marketplace has connected 100,000 merchant users, double the number that were connected as of January of last year.

Square tells TechCrunch that the average merchant connected to its App Marketplace — a catalog of apps and solutions that integrate with Square through which tasks such as accounting, inventory, eCommerce and invoicing are represented by companies like Bigcommerce, Shopventory, Weebly and Xero — is three times larger than the average Square merchant (based on transaction volume). The takeaway of that statistic for TechCrunch is that, although Square originated by catering to smaller merchants, said merchants can keep Square as their payments processor, no matter how large they may grow.

The outlet notes that the App Marketplace is an essential aspect of growing merchants’ relationships with Square, as it provides access to advanced features beyond Square’s basic offerings — for example, in the areas of inventory and accounting systems.

To the latter point, Jessica Shalek, head of business development and lead on App Marketplace, told TechCrunch that accounting is the biggest category for growing businesses in the U.S. on the Square platform.

Nate Stewart of Bigcommerce, meanwhile, spoke highly to the outlet of the ability of Square’s API to facilitate new integrations with relative ease, remarking on Bigcommerce’s experience with the App Marketplace: “We’re not doing a lot of support volume, which usually doesn’t happen.”

If there remains a question about Square’s future despite its App Marketplace milestone (in addition to when the company will show a profit), TechCrunch posits that it’s whether Square will be able to hang on to some of its merchants once they reach a certain size — a problem whose potential solution might be for Square to begin directly going after the businesses of bigger merchants, right out of the gate.