In a prestigious online retail environment, Square has become an integral tool in the small business landscape. However, a recent outage of their service cost small business owners a hefty sum of money due to temporary unavailability.
According to data reported by the company, this unexpected outage, lasting approximately three hours, caused more than $20,000 in lost revenue for the merchants. As noteworthy as the outage was, it’s only a fraction in comparison to the greater discussion around the shrinking entire economy, as merchants increasingly shift to e-commerce platforms as their primary method of conducting business.
The latest outage was reported on November 13th, which is only one in a series of recent service interruptions, which included a similar sized outage last month. These outages have been especially damaging to those merchants who still rely on the physical presence of square terminals, and rely heavily on their digital services for transaction processing and reconciliations.
The effect of the outages is not limited to the costs of lost sales. Many merchants must also experience greater costs of operational efficiencies and financial losses due to the disruption of their workflow. Furthermore, incidents such as these can also land merchants in hot waters with customers, who may be further discouraged in returning for their services.
When complaints and matters of lost revenue merge together, it can lead to a decrease in customer confidence, which can lead to decreased trust and a longer-term effect on the overall profitability of the small businesses. This means that the losses due to such interruptions in services can be much larger than the actual sales figure itself.
With the sensitive state of the economic situation, it is essential for businesses of all sizes to focus on finding short-term and long-term solutions to protect their financial interests. If companies such as Square can make sure their services are up and running with minimal disruptions, it can buy small businesses more time and money, which they need right now.
