Contactless payments company Square has seen its clients' online sales jump since the coronavirus pandemic forced small businesses to adapt to social distancing and stay-at-home orders with new technology.
"Moving online became an absolute priority," said David Rusenko, head of e-commerce at Square.
The company not only signed up new clients but also found that existing clients began to rely on more of the fintech's offerings.
Touting his company's ecosystem for small businesses, which encompasses everything from payroll to online sales, Rusenko stated, "A lot of sellers were able to adopt Square's online store as their online ordering solution."
The ongoing crisis has also established the importance for businesses to have an online presence. According to Rusenko, "Everything completely changed, especially for small businesses who were hit extremely hard. It turned into survival mode." Rusenko also said that businesses expanding operations online has become a priority.
"It went from something people were sort of looking to do in the next few years and it really shortened that three-year adoption cycle down to three weeks."
Rusenko presented Macri's Bakery, a family-owned business in South Bend, Indiana that has been operating since 1978, as an example of a small business that was able to shift online when the pandemic hit.
"They were not selling online prior to the pandemic. They were very quickly able to leverage Square's online store to shift all of their sales online," he said. "They implemented grocery sales. They were receiving a huge amount of food from their supply chain and things that may have been difficult to find elsewhere."
"A restaurant used to be just a restaurant, and now people are really adapting and they're doing all kinds of things to weather through the times," he added.
Most members of the Federal Reserve’s interest-rate setting committee supported further reductions to its key interest rate this year, minutes from last month’s meeting showed.
Sinead O’Sullivan breaks down Taylor Swift’s genius marketing for The Life of a Showgirl, which just set the record for most albums sold in a single week.
Markets are emerging from a turbulent Q3. Horizon’s Mike Dickson shares insights on interest rates, small caps, and where investors should look in Q4 and beyond
Bambu Ventures's Kyle Pretsch dives into Lemonaid’s $10M buyout, down from 23andMe’s $400M price tag, and what’s next after Chrome Co.’s dramatic pivot.
Former Cisco Systems CEO John Chambers learned all about technology’s volatile highs and lows as a veteran of the internet’s early boom days during the late 1990s and the ensuing meltdown that followed the mania. And now he is seeing potential signs of the cycle repeating with another transformative technology in artificial intelligence. Chambers is trying take some of the lessons he learned while riding a wave that turned Cisco into the world's most valuable company in 2000 before a crash hammered its stock price and apply them as an investor in AI startups. He recently discussed AI's promise and perils during an interview with The Associated Press.
Grove Collaborative’s CEO shares how the company is reinventing everyday goods with sustainability at the core and working toward a plastic-free future.
Atlanta Mayor Andre Dickens shares plans for affordable housing, community-led growth, and why private and public grocery stores could be key to food equity.
