Square acquires Stitch Labs to help grow its merchant toolkit

Payments company Square last week acquired commerce operations firm Stitch Labs, whose tools let businesses oversee inventory, orders, channel management, and fulfillment. Stitch Labs’ products will continue to operate for existing customers until spring of next year, after which its team will focus on building Square’s tools. Terms of the deal weren’t disclosed.

Why should we care?Through Square Online Store that relaunched last year following the company’s $365M Weebly acquisition in 2018, Square has been building out its offerings for e-commerce sellers. Square Online Store lets sellers look after payments, inventory, delivery and other retail logistics functions. Stitch Labs’ capabilities will likely strengthen Square’s offerings for sellers, as more consumers shop online during the pandemic and beyond. The growth of Square’s e-commerce products lets it diversify revenue streams beyond payments and compete with other platforms that help sellers put their products online, including Shopify, BigCommerce and Adobe-owned Magento. As Square moves further into retail, retail platforms -- including Shopify -- are beefing up their financial services offerings.