Square Upgrades Fulfillment With New UPS Partnership

The UPS integration lets Square Online Store merchants offer customers the same shipping options as the industry leaders.

Need to Know

  • UPS shipping services will be integrated into Square’s Online Store platform for businesses and sellers, granting them access to a suite of UPS services to use for order fulfillment. 
  • Square is a merchant service aggregator and mobile payments company with a customer base made of small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs). Square Online Store is a service that allows SMBs to grow their business with a professional e-commerce website and integrated tools.
  • With the partnership, Square customers are able to tap into pricing and shipping options typically only available to large businesses. 
  • Square has over 2 million sellers and it’s 2018 annual net revenue reached $3.3 billion.

Analysis

Square’s UPS partnership marks strong advances for the mobile payments company that will close the gap with Shopify and Amazon. 

In addition to providing Square’s e-commerce customers UPS shipping connectivity to simplify their order fulfillment, the new collaboration gives SMBs access to the same shipping services offered to the industry’s largest players. Square’s e-commerce customers can receive up to 55% off UPS’s daily rates and will have various surcharges waved. 

“UPS understands that making shipping seamless for small businesses is an essential ingredient to success and to growth,” said Kevin Warren, UPS’s CMO in a press release. “This collaboration gives Square’s customers simple and affordable access to UPS’s top-tier shipping services within the same familiar platform they’re already using.”

With e-commerce on the rise—an estimated 1.8 billion people worldwide purchase goods online—Square’s UPS partnership allows its sellers to fulfill orders faster and grow and expand their businesses. 

“Square Online Store makes it easy for sellers of all sizes to be successful selling online,” said David Rusenko, general manager of e-commerce at Square in the release. “As a result of this collaboration, we’re excited to offer our online sellers access to fast, affordable and fully integrated shipping through UPS.”

The integration is the latest in a string of advancements in UPS’s newly unveiled digital strategy called DAP (digital access program). The program helps e-commerce platforms by providing a comprehensive suite of services including order management, fulfillment, and delivery services to simplify the complexity of logistics.

With Shopify currently holding nearly a 20% market share, the need for a user-friendly, one-stop e-commerce-shop is very real for SMBs. Square’s new UPS integration places them in a better position to compete with companies like Shopify for a bigger slice of the e-commerce pie.