After sitting on the sidelines for a year while I concentrated on some other career paths, I’m trying to get my furniture business moving forward once again.
In the past, product went to a local gallery owner who cut a check immediately, or work was done on custom basis with 50% down and 50% on delivery with absolutely no problems collecting.
Now, I have an opportunity to exhibit at a small local furniture exhibition and I’m hoping to make a few cash-and-carry sales on-site. My business is registered and I already collect and remit sales tax. I’ll take cash and checks, but I’d also like the option of accepting credit cards for payment. I have a personal PayPal account and I see that they offer credit card processing with their virtual terminal service. It seems like an easy, inexpensive option for getting started given that I can bring my laptop with a wireless broadband card and be online and ready to charge. I need to dig a little deeper on PayPal’s site to learn more about the service and fees…and I should call my own bank where I have my business account to see what they offer.
Can anyone share their experiences with this? Are you making walk-up retail sales in your shop or on-site at craft shows or similar exhibitions? What forms of payment will you accept? (Realizing of course that cash is king!)
In addition to the convenience or comfort level of processing a credit card, there’s always the fear of accepting a bad check at these things. What options for protection do I have for that?
As always, your input is greatly appreciated.
tony b.
Replies
I cannot give you any first hand experience Tony but I just talked to a fellow today that came to see me. We did not discuss off premiss credit card processing but we did discuss different providers and they does seem to be a huge difference when it comes to fees and contract terms.
Here is a link to The American Craft forum. There is some discussion on this topic and myabe you can get some quicker answers there since most of these people do alot of shows and cc processing.
http://www.americancraftforum.com/cgi-bin/iB/ikonboard.cgi
Garry
http://www.superwoodworks.com
Check out charge america, it's the best deal for occasional use.
C.
PS I think is http://www.chargeamerica.com not sure though.
You might find the magazine "Crafts Report"
http://www.craftsreport.com/
It deals with the business aspect of crafts.
Tony, I own a small retail store (non-WWing) and we've accepted credit cards since day 1, in 1993.
Generally, banks charge much more for processing credit card transactions than the big processing companies do. You'll have several charges to deal with
I think that about covers it. I don't remember being very impressed with PayPal's charges, but it's been awhile. Given that you could use them without buying new equipment, and you aren't selling stuff every day, PayPal might be more cost-effective though.
The cost of equipment can be outrageous with some of these companies. I'll be glad to send you the phone number of the company I use. I bought a refurbished machine from them for about 30% of what a new one would cost, there was no set-up fee, and they've been extremely reliable and have good customer service when I have a question. I've had the machine for about 3 years now and it has performed flawlessly.
I'm at home now. I'll send the phone# tomorrow afternoon when I'm at work.
forestgirl -- you can take the girl out of the forest, but you can't take the forest out of the girl ;-)
Edited 4/11/2006 12:34 am by forestgirl
My wife is a artist and we do the art festivals. We have a regular terminal like you are used to seeing and bring it to the shows. Since there are no phone lines out there we run the cards "offline" . So every thing works normaly... except that we wait untill we get home to run the "batch". The risk is that if someone gives us a bad card we wont know untill the next night. For extra security we require a drivers license to use a card. The rates in this senario are a lot less than any of the wireless mobile terminals out there. The terminal cost $50.
Mike
Garry -- thanks for the discussion link...very useful!
Citrouille -- chargeamerica.com is the type of service I'm looking for. Charge.com was another service I found as well. Several similar services also exist...use just your cell phone or an internet connection to access the service.
RickL -- I'll dig into that link this week. Thanks!
FG -- Thanks! That was EXACTLY what I wanted to know about the fee structure. I hadn't planned on walk-up retail sales like a store, and I'm only scheduled to do this one event (for now...), so I want a service that require a minimum of equipment. I'm most concerned about managing/minimizing my risk and making more sales by providing more payment options to a walk-up customer. I don't mind giving away an extra couple of points for NOT using a scanner in exchange for an authorization by cell phone or by internet connection using things I already have access to. And I would certainly invest in the right equipment if I were to do more shows or expected more walk-up/walk-in business. I'll be overwhelmed if I actually sell anything at this event...but I'd still like to plan for success and have this option available to me.
mudman -- the offline scanner seems like the most versatile system allowing you to charge anywhere at anytime, but with some risk since you can't get verification until you download. Yours was the sytem suggested to me by an accountant friend earlier today...but he also recommended that I exhibit at more events, and I'm not prepared to do that unless I can find the RIGHT events.
Looking forward to more replies or suggestions...thanks all!
tony b.
Jeez, I forgot to send you that phone number! Doesn't sound like it's urgent anyhooooo. Perhaps the PayPal option might be your best for now?
PS: Beware of taking American Express. Last I checked, their "Discount Rate" was huge.
forestgirl -- you can take the girl out of the forest, but you can't take the forest out of the girl ;-)
Edited 4/12/2006 1:16 pm by forestgirl
Tony,
Some practical and psychological nuggets:
When i did art festivals, i did a paper imprinter swipe and punched in my numbers once i was home again on my hard-wired terminal. This had the advantage of being submitted as one "batch" at the end of the show, and didn't rely on good wireless communication. Shows have rhythms, and you don't want to break it for a bad connection. There were other crafters who did shows every week who used a cell phone set-up - usually one person selling and one dialing - but it was very expensive to set up at that time, about 3 years ago when i got off the road, so i can't speak to current usage. My way of doing things didn't offer immediate gratification of knowing that a card was good, but in maybe 12 years of taking credit cards, i got only one bad one for $129...appproximately equalling the cost of bad checks over that time. People who buy woodwork seem to be a more honest group as a whole. If i were a jeweler, i would reconsider.
The cost was relatively lower that way is 'swiped' cards, and the only problem i encountered was automatic bank limits set on people's cards. For instance, a $600+ sale that wouldn't go through until i broke it down into smaller amounts...a technically *illegal* thing to do according to the card companies, but i knew my [repeat] customers were good for it, that it was a glitch bec of an arbitrary rule the CC company had put on their card use to preclude fraud.
I began collecting addresses for cards after that incident, bec the bank refused to help me contact the cardholder - they are pigs, pure and simple, to the merchant. I could then personally get in contact with the person if there were a problem. This is also technically *illegal*: according to the fine print in the card agreement, you cannot ask for ID or an address or phone number. I never found a customer who knew that, however, and all were willing to comply, as it makes sense.
I took only MasterCard/Mistress Visa. Amex is a pain, as Jamie said, and Discover uses a different set-up. I found anyone who had a Discover card also had a MC or Visa they would use.
There is also the tendency of people to use plastic if they know you take it, rather than do checks or cash. The last couple years of shows, i got pissed off at my bank that had made many errors in my account, stopped taking plastic at all and didn't lose any large sales by doing so, though i might have lost a few minor ones. Most good shows will now have a mobile ATM machine set up so that people can use their cards to get actual money on-site.
Make sure if you go with a service, that you read every inch of the fine print. Also, make sure every page of the contract and terms of service are there for you to read. If you do not understand anything don't sign the contract. There are a few scum bags working in this industry, and they will jump at the chance to take advantage of you. I would check the BBB, where the co is located, of any company or bank before signing.
There are people that use services that are great, I had the misforutne of not doing what I said above. Took me awhile to straighten out the mess, and a couple of thousand bucks.
Your personal bank is probably the safest resource for card processing, and sometimes the most expensive.
Earl -- I was prepared for that. The sheer number of services that show up in a Google search for "credit card processing" with low costs/no costs for certain services is a red flag to look more closely at any agreement. And FG made it clear that there are a number of costs to look for. If some of those services are free, I suspect a company of trying to make it back somewhere else, perhaps buying equipment at an inflated price, or a long-term lease with a huge cancellation penalty, or similar.
Splint -- In the back of my mind, I knew that you and FG either did retail, or exhibited, or did both and I hoped you'd reply and share your experiences...and you have! Thank you!
tony b.
Another thing i thought of after i posted, is that the CC fee structure is designed so that small sales are charged a larger percentage than spendy items. I had everything from $6 barrrettes at some shows to chaises longues at others, but i would refuse to take a card on anything less than $10 because the fee was about 15% IIRC on the sales under that amount. This is also technically *illegal*, btw, according to the card company.You need to also be aware of security, a safe place in the booth for your laptop, if you go that way. Thieves had gotten surprising adept at stealing from the larger art fairs i did in San Francisco, Seattle, Denver, etc. They knew the artists would be leaving town and couldn't pursue a problem, so they got pretty brazen. One of the last large shows i did, a woman had hauled in her business gear to her spot in the Portland Convention Center, and it was gone when she got back with her next load. That's an indoor show...it gets harder to control with outdoor venues. All the artists carry their money and CC slips in a belt pack, and left NOTHING in their cars.If you should go with a swiper, i have one of those and an imprinter i would let go very reasonably, as i'm quite happy to be off the road. You can also get them quite reasonably off ebay, too, and hope they work. <G>
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