After some research I came up with a pretty nifty solution to taking money at art fairs - you will need an iPhone, an app called Ring it Up, another app called iMerchant Pro along with their secure credit card swiper for the iPhone.
What I like about this solution is that Ring It Up is a full-featured Point of Sale system with inventory management and some rudimentary reporting. But the best part is its support of barcoding. In its simplest form you can attach barcodes to your goods, read them and create descriptions that include pricing. What I did was a little different. I exported the items file from Ring it Up, populated it with all my "stuff" with a couple of quick and easy manipulations in Excel, I had a cell for each item that contained the item's description and price - which was used to create a QR Code which I printed, along with the item description, on a label. When I create a sale, I take the customer's email address (or better yet, their full address information if they are willing to provide it), scan my items, scan their credit card or take cash, generate an invoice for them to see, and the RIU app instantly emails them a copy of the invoice. RIU deducts the items from inventory, and you are ready for the next transaction.
The iMerchant app has links to Quickbooks for more extensive reporting.
Aside from the iPhone, the cost of RIU was $30, the iMerchant app was $1, the card reader was free, and the best part of using Card Reader and their merchant account is that they offer competetive rates, only a $12 monthly fee, no setup charges, no "contract" and the option to use it seasonally, turning it off and saving the monthly fee during the off season. RIU also works on the iPad and other platforms.
My background is I have been involved in IT since the early 80s, but have always taking pictures, especially of natural subjects. Digital photography has matured to the point that I can surpass the quality of work I was doing in film, and with much greater ease. so I am now able to show my work with confidence, hence I started doing art fairs.
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I want to warn about the Square: It's a lot more complicated than it used to be to use the app on an iPad. I used the Square for only one transaction during a recent art fair in Minneapolis, and the customer's card would not swipe. Finally, it appeared to swipe and numbers appeared on my iPad. It looked like it worked, but it actually hadn't worked. It was confusing for me because I've only used it a few times. The customer took the painting I thought she had bought for $250. When I looked at the app later in my hotel room I saw that the customer had not actually paid for the painting because the card had not swiped after all and the app had recorded it as a "cash" transaction. I never got any cash or payment of any kind!
I did not have the customer's email address. I didn't even get her name. She did enter her email address into my iPad herself to get her receipt, but Square will not tell me her email address and the app has encrypted it. I have no way to get in touch with this customer so the painting was essentially taken and not paid for. Square support is not much help, although they did "reach out" to the customer by her email which they will not give me -- and I have gotten no response from the "customer", so I guess it's goodbye to the payment. So to newbies like me -- get customer's email addresses and do not let them leave with a painting until you are 100% sure the card was actually swiped! From the behavior of the app and my unfamiliarity with it, it did appear as though it had worked, until I scrutinized it later. So be careful... I have learned my lesson!
The thing I like most about Square is that it instantly tells you if the transaction was approved. If you don't see that message, check you accounts balance for the day and see if it posted. No "approved" message and no entry into the transaction log, means it did not go through. The transaction log will also tell you if it was cash or charge.
I always make sure I get the "approved" message before I hand the card back. If the card doesn't read the first two swipes, I enter the number by hand, even though it's another .75% cost. I also look for that email that usually comes in 5 to 10 minutes after the transaction.
Yeah, all good points. Lesson learned. And I'm putting my Square away for awhile.
Did it have a place for her to sign? I have used the Square quite a bit and have not issues with payments not going through, however my app was not working one day and I had to reload it. Luckily I checked it out before people started showing up.
No, and due to a lot of activity going on around me at the time, I didn't even think about it. That was what should have told me the transaction didn't go through. I think I'm going to stick with cash and checks for a while. People still ask if they can pay with checks and at least that leaves a paper trail.
One thing about checks. You can ask for anything you want for ID. You can even write their drivers license on it if you want. Name, address, phone number must be there.
For plastic you can't do any of that. Not even a phone number. And if you want a phone number, the customer can give you random numbers just to satisfy you.
To practice using your Square, run charges of $1 from your own credit card until you're comfortable with the process.
I've taken checks ever since I started doing this. And I only had 2 checks I couldn't collect on. And they were from the same person! One check on Saturday, and the other check on Sunday.
I didn't get my money, but I got even.
I have internet on the go WIFI and have not had any issues so far. I use my Ipad to take payments.
I also use gopayment with my iPhone and am happy. I purchased the "Mophie" for my iPhone from ebay and always have my card reader with me as part of my phone and absolute LOVE it. It allows me to sell my jewelry right off my neck, finger, etc. and can accept credit cards without having to worry about where my reader is. Plus it frees up my audio jack which I now use for my stylus to aid customers in signing for their purchases without having to use their fingers.
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