Accepting cc payments via mobile - help?

missprint

Can anyone advise on how to go about setting up credit card payments via my mobile? Increasingly people are asking to pay by cc and I have lost sales by not being able to accept them (arts and crafts shows). Research into this has come up with the need for a Merchant account and card turnover of many £1000s per year, I don't fall into this category. Any experience out there?

tom188

You need a merchant account, I see no other alternative. Nearest equivalent I guess is paypal.

To allow everybody to accept credit cards payments from anybody would create serious security issues.

missprint

It would be difficult to accept PayPal payments at a craft fair sadly. But I like the idea. Also a Merchant account takes weeks to set up apparently, my next show is in early November.

simongregson

Paypal do an e-terminal piece of software, if you got a laptop with a wireless connection it could work ok. See www.paypal.co.uk

I think there is a monthly fee though.

Here is a more direct link.

https://www.paypal.com/uk/cgi-bin/webscr?cmd=_vt_hub-outside

missprint

Thanks for that, I'll check it out.

Iamthesmartestmanalive

The other option would be to afilliate yourself with another business and use their account

Obviously getting someone to do this is the hard bit but not impossible id imagine

Merchant accounts do exist for legitimate reason, and their is high enough levels of fraud through them with the existing guidelines I dread to think about the levels if they didnt have these conditions

The other issue is whether you can accept all the rules etc attached to them

missprint

I have thought about asking to use someone else's account but it seems a bit cheeky. I'd rather do it alone or do without. The PayPal option looks promising, I'm going to try phoning them for a chat.

missprint

Update on this...I now have the PayPal facility to take credit cards, thanks to simongregson for this suggestion. We will run a laptop with a datacard that acts as a mobile phone (Vodaphone do a pay-as-you-go datacard) and take credit cards from the paying public. Haven't tried it yet but it looks workable. PayPal hasn't been the easiest to communicate with, but they came through in the end.

louisew31

How have you got on with taking credit card payments with paypal? I am in similar situation to you, going to craft fayres & don't take credit cards yet but think i need to. Setting up merchant account and hiring mobile terminal seems expensive for our small business yet don't want to turn sales away by not taking cards.