Canadian business owners rejoice: you can now accept payments wherever you can get reception on your smart Android or iPhone — for only 2.75% per swipe.

Yep, the Square has officially launched in Canada.

Okay, the word “rejoice” might be a little strong in this context… but if you sell handmade leather belts at craft fairs in Montreal, life might get a little easier for you. Much easier.

It’s hard to make a solid rough estimate, but I’d be willing to guess that you’d have to turn away about half of your potential customers at your leather goods booth here in the US. Next to nobody carries cash in America, and those who do rarely carry enough to buy more than a Bud Light at a baseball game.

Now, I don’t know how things are in Canada… but I’m assuming that the biggest difference is what’s printed on the currency that no one carries in their wallets anymore.

And that’s exactly why this expansion is significant to Canadian entrepreneurs. That’s probably also why Square targeted Canada for it’s first international expansion — there’s just a lot of compatibility there for them to springboard off of.

Can you imagine the red tape Square would have to get through in taking its magical “dongle” (their word not mine) to the EU? To China?

Square made the right move by expanding it’s services to our neighbors to the North, and it should serve as a good reminder to all digital marketers in the US that Canada is perhaps the most accessible marketplace outside the Fifty Nifty.

All online businesses need to include Canada, Australia, and the UK in its marketing strategy as early as possible. I ran into this back when I was reselling items on eBay. Customers from Canada would have to ask if I would ship to them… until I made it explicit that I would.

Then the floodgates opened and a significant portion of my business eventually came from Canada.

Guess Square is probably worth well over that $3.25B now…

Did You Know?

On my last post about Square, a commenter pointed out that you can use the Square outside they US (she was in Costa Rica), but it must be connected to a US bank account. I can’t confirm that, but it may be something to look into if you’re an American needing to process credit cards abroad.