Mobile Payments Startup Square Wraps Holiday Marketing Effort In A “Gift”

Looking for a last-minute stocking stuffer this holiday season? Square has launched a new campaign to encourage existing users to give their favorite entrepreneur or small business owner a mobile payments device as a holiday gift. The Square reader comes nicely gift wrapped in snowflake wrapping paper and the purchaser only has to pay $1 (FYI—un-wrapped Square readers are free).

Square tells us the campaign launched on November 15 and has already brought over 20,000 orders for gift-wrapped devices. And as the holiday shopping season kicks off, Square has also noticed a significant uptick in sales at its 9,000 retail partners, which include Apple, Best Buy, Radio Shack, Target and Wal-Mart. At these stores, Square readers retail for $9.99 in stores but each purchaser can redeem a $10 credit to their bank account.

For Square, which is now processing $11 million in payments per day, 20,000 readers shipped via the campaign is no small amount considering the company had previously reported that a total of 800,000 readers had been shipped (and activated) by merchants.