Square and POWDR Bring New Commerce Tech to the Ski Slopes

Dec 14, 2020

As the winter ski season gets underway, Square announced that its commerce platform now powers payments, e-commerce, and point of sale at nearly a dozen renowned ski resorts across the U.S. and Canada in partnership with POWDR, an adventure lifestyle company on a mission to deliver memorable experiences, enhance people’s lives and have fun doing it.

Square’s versatility of software, hardware, and e-commerce allow POWDR resorts to offer hospitality experiences that meet the needs and expectations of their customers, which are continually evolving due to ongoing public health concerns. As skiers and snowboarders prepare to return to the slopes this year, they’ll be able to safely enjoy mountain amenities and conduct touch-free transactions at dozens of food & beverage, retail, and online sites at POWDR resorts across North America.

Over the last year, POWDR has been working to bring Square hardware, software, and payments to their mountains, including:

  • Boreal – California, USA
  • Copper Mountain – Colorado, USA
  • Eldora – Colorado, USA
  • Killington – Vermont, USA
  • Lee Canyon – Nevada, USA
  • Mt. Bachelor – Oregon, USA
  • SilverStar – British Columbia, Canada
  • Soda Springs – California, USA
  • Woodward Park City – Utah, USA
  • Woodward Tahoe – California, USA

Square improves the guest experience across retail, dining, and other ski mountain venues, and makes commerce easy for customers and staff alike. For example, at food halls on-mountain, many resorts are using self-serve ordering through Square Online to enable order-ahead, pickup, and in-seat delivery. Customers simply scan a QR code from their own mobile devices to purchase lunch to refuel midday or a round of après-ski drinks, while staying socially distant from employees and other guests. This summer, guests at Lee Canyon’s Bighorn Grill used Square Online Store to buy food and alcohol for taking up the chairlift to enjoy while hiking or playing disc golf.

Similarly, Square Point of Sale software is powering commerce across the mountain resorts, with Square for Restaurants for dining operations and Square for Retail at retail shopping venues. Additionally, many resorts are choosing to offer online stores for the first time ever, so skiers and snowboarders can purchase merchandise and support their favorite ski destinations from afar. Square is also powering payments for online sales of some season passes via an integration with Aspenware, a commerce platform built for ski. With a custom-built integration, Aspenware can also sync season passholder data to Square systems and make discounts available to eligible customers at the register.

Hundreds of Square Registers, Square Terminals, and Square Stands are among the elegant hardware solutions awaiting customers across POWDR resorts. Square hardware enables a variety of touch-free transactions to fit guests’ needs and preferences, from tapping a mobile device to a Square Terminal brought tableside, to dipping an EMV chip card into Square Register’s buyer-facing display.

“POWDR chose to partner with Square because they help elevate the guest experience from enabling fast, secure, contactless payments to integrated online-ordering solutions,” says Justin Sibley, Co-President at POWDR. ”Safety is our top priority, on and off the mountain, and Square knows this and aligns with POWDR’s Operation Stay Safe, the enhanced POWDR mountain experience that prioritizes the well-being of our staff, guests and community in the midst of the pandemic.”

“With Square’s proven success with sports stadiums and entertainment venues, bringing our solutions to ski resorts is a natural extension in serving larger, more dynamic businesses,” said Ashley Grech, Global Head of Sales at Square. “Ski resorts are like small cities, with restaurants, retail shops, ticketing, and hospitality. Square is able to unify these buying experiences thanks to our first-party ecosystem, and network of partners we use to create custom commerce capabilities. Additionally, we’re constantly adding new features to our software and bringing more partner integrations to our platform to enable even more commerce experiences.”

To learn more about how Square can serve your business, whether a collection of ski resorts or another large-scale enterprise, contact the Square enterprise sales team.