Will Starbucks, Square Take Mobile Payments Mainstream?
By: Cadie Thompson | Technology Editor, CNBC.com
Starbucksis billing its recent partnership with Squareas a "breakthrough deal for the marketplace," according to CEO Howard Schultz, hinting at how the company isn't waiting around for mobile payments to catch on with the broader public.
The new partnership between Starbucks and Square allows Starbucks customers to pay for their purchases using their mobile device. Starbucks will begin rolling out the new mobile payments feature this Fall and plans to offer payments via Square at all of its locations before the holiday season, Schultz said.
Mobile payment platforms have been slow to catch on with many consumers. However, the deal may be just enough prod more into using their devices as portable checkout counter, Square CEO Jack Dorsey says.
"I think its going to move faster than anyone expects," Dorsey said on CNBC's "Squawk on the Street" Wednesday. "You see this transition to mobile being a device to pay, and this is bringing it to the world in a major way."
Basically, the customer uses the Square application to store their credit card information. When a customer wants to pay with their smartphone, they open the Square application, where a barcode will appear. The application then scans the barcode to pay at a Starbucks counter.
Schultz said his company has been in conversation with numerous tech companies who have been "trying to crack the code on how to monetize mobile payments." He added that it wasn't until Starbucks started talking to Square that they realized mobile payments full potential.
"As soon as we met Jack and Square, we realized there was an opportunity to significantly enhance the customer experience at Starbucks, differentiate ourselves from everybody else in the retail business," Schultz told CNBC's Squawk on the Street .
Mobile payments make sense because smartphones are "clearly replacing many devices," and becoming the primary unit for many consumers, Schultz said.
More than that, paying with a mobile device offers consumers an easier way to pay, he said.
"People have their phone on them all the time, its a seamless transaction," Schultz said.
Schultz didn't give estimates about adoption rates, but said that he expects customers who already use a Starbucks card — which is over 25 percent of the company's customer base — to "...migrate off the card on to the Square platform very quickly."
—By CNBC.com’s Cadie Thompson
email: tech@cnbc.com
