Accepting card payments at craft fairs

jennifernil

My OH is a keen wood turner and has been invited to take a table at a local pre Christmas craft fair.  The fair was very well attended last year with a good variety of crafts represented, so he has agreed to take the table.  He has been at a few venues previously with his wood turning club, but this will be his first solo venue.

Thinking further, and taking into account that, while he does have some smaller, less expensive items to take along, many of the larger items will be in the £30+ bracket, that many people do not carry much cash these days, and that the area is fairly affluent, we wondered whether  it would be a good idea to be able to take credit/debit card payments as well as cash.

He has researched card readers, and thought that the one advertised by Virgin  Money would be good, but on trying to obtain one he was told it was only available to registered businesses who were actively advertising their services or products.   Looking at other offerings, many also mention "small businesses".

Does anyone have any experience with these devices, or able to suggest what he could do instead?

[Deleted User]

Look into the Square card readers.

jennifernil

Thanks, that does look like a good possibility, and not too expensive either.  They also do not seem to be bothered who is going to use it.

flipflopflo

Sum Up are good too. 

jennifernil

Thanks, yes.  It will be one of those 2 I reckon

rach_k

I've used SumUp with the school PTA and it's pretty good.  I think the fee is about as low as you can get with this sort of card reader (1.69% IIRC).  What is really good now is that if you have an android phone that is NFC enabled, you may not even need to buy a card reader to take payments, as most modern android phones can take the payment directly using the SumUp app.  The readers aren't that expensive anyway (quite often on offer for around £15 on Amazon, Ryman etc) but free is better!  

Zettle do the same thing with a similar fee.  

No good for iPhones though, you would need to buy a card reader to use one.

DullGreyGuy

rach_k said:

No good for iPhones though, you would need to buy a card reader to use one.

All the services are good for iPhones, iPads etc but they do need the card reader which are typically £30 or less

Personally would suggest getting a reader anyway as firstly you can get a "insert card" requirement occasionally which I dont think a straight android phone can deal with plus there was one person refusing to allow a trader to put their phone to their card saying they were trying to copy the details but the same person earlier was perfectly happy using a Zettle reader. 

CapricornLass

Several things that will be useful wrt a reader:
make sure that all software has been updated before you go to a fair.
make sure that your phone and the reader are both fully charged.  If you have a power bank, its worth taking along as a back up.
Have you tested the venue as to whether you can get a good wifi signal? Some will offer free wifi thats only available to you for 10 mins, after that you have to reapply....  We were at one fair which was in a metal shed, which effectively blocked out 4G!

DavidJatt

Also used SumUp at the most recent craft fair. It worked well, but kept dropping out every so often. Also tried to use the WiFi from another mobile hotspot, so got confused a couple of times. Best advice is, as always, keep it simple!

Dragonqueen

Hi - I use Sum Up reader - it is simple and has not let me down at all where you can get wi-fi. I have had to walk outside of a venue a couple of times to pick up a signal, but if a customer is determined to pay by card, they don't mind that.