Venmo Pilots Business Payments For Micro SMBs

Venmo will introduce a new feature for businesses to accept payments separate from the individual owner’s account, a press release says.

The payments company said the idea was to add features for those like “sole proprietors, casual sellers, and users with a side hustle” to have an additional boost to their businesses during the pandemic economy.

“Whether you’re an artist, selling homemade planters at a craft fair, serving up one-of-a-kind haircuts, selling floral arrangements or mowing lawns, you can now leverage the power of Venmo’s community of more than 52 million users to generate interest, referrals and awareness for your business,” the press release says.

More than 75 percent of the small businesses in the U.S. are sole proprietors, the release says, and Venmo wants to aid them in the times when the pandemic has shut down many businesses or rendered them inoperable due to the risk of transmitting the coronavirus.

“For these individuals, we know how hard it can be to connect, market and grow their businesses, relying solely on traditional methods like word of mouth without access to big marketing budgets,” the release says.

Business profiles will make use of touch-free transactions with QR codes to aid social distancing. Businesses will have the option of sending the QR code to customers directly via email if they so wish.

Also, they’ll be able to customize their page with a profile picture, logo and other details about the business.

Once set up and running, users will have access to data about transactions and number of customers, according to Venmo.

The Business Profiles function is just in pilot for now, Venmo said, but will become available within the coming weeks and months.

Venmo parent PayPal will be offering direct crypto sales in the future, it reported recently. The feature could be rolled out in the next several months and could include popular exchanges like Coinbase and Bitstamp.