Square has announced that Square Appointments is now available to beauty salons and hairdressers in Ireland.
Square Appointments provides salons with online scheduling, automatic reminders, and payment processing to manage their operations in one place.
“Ireland represents a significant opportunity for Square Appointments", said Jason Lalor, executive director at Square Europe. “The Irish beauty and personal care industry has close to 10,000 businesses producing high revenue.
“From speaking directly to our sellers, we know that they are spending so much time on the phone booking and rebooking clients, meaning they are likely to be missing out on new customers who prefer online booking.
“In our other markets we’ve found that one-third of bookings in this industry are made at a time when salons are closed, Square Appointments takes away that barrier with a service that is available around the clock.”
In Association with
Square has in its sights existing players in the space such as Irish company Phorest, Fresha, Ovatu, Appointedd, Booksy and Timely.
Square Appointments has three price points: free, €19 per month per location, or €49 per month per location.
Lalor added that sellers can take secure payment at checkout directly from the app, can set up prepayment for when customers book, keep a card on file, and send detailed professional invoices.
The transaction fee is paid when the sale is made. Square charges 1.75% plus Vat for in-person credit card transactions and 1.4% plus 25c plus Vat for online payments.
Square Appointments enables salons to create an enforceable fee policy for last-minute cancellations and no-shows. The product also facilitates automated email and text reminders, and syncing with Google Calendar to avoid double bookings.
Square Appointments can be used on any desktop, tablet or smartphone using a web browser or the Square Appointments app, available in the App Store or Google Play.
Square Appointments is also compatible with Square Register, the company’s hardware that features two screens. Square Terminal does not support the Square Appointments app, but the company says it plans to add this capability soon.
According to Square, salons with a website can drag and drop an online booking flow using a Square widget or create a booking button for their site.
To use Square Appointments, salons firstly create a Square account. Square Appointments is free for single point-of-sale businesses that want a customisable online booking page.
Square said it can also assist salons to bulk import customer and inventory into Appointments.
