Craft Festival
Home

Our Mission

FAQ

Art & Craft
Directory

Contact Us

Art & Craft Articles

Custom Work

On Line Success

Advertising

Accepting Credit Cards at Art and Craft Shows

Privacy Policy

Copyright © 2001-2010
All Rights Reserved

Accepting Credit Card Sales at Shows by Conard Update Click Here

Increased Sales from Accepting Credit Cards?

In short the answer to this question is and has always been YES!! The amount of the increase will vary on your product, price and the areas you are doing your shows in. In my case here in Up State NY the amount of credit card sales for our products has jumped to 50% of our total sales at any given show. In the early 70's, when cards were used much less, our average show was only around 5% in credit card sales.

How Do You Take Cards at Shows?

Level One:

There are many ways to accept credit card payments while on the road or doing local shows. The oldest way is to purchase what is lovingly called a "Knuckle Buster" or the old style credit card slider machine. The processing companies have been getting away from offering these for security reasons and will charge you a higher rate for using them. Most will no longer accept the paper receipts that this produces and when you get home you will have to hand enter each sale into a credit card terminal. That "hand entered" sale will cost you an extra 1% to 2% in bank charges.

Some processing companies want you to call each sale in for a voice authorization before the customer leaves your booth. This can tie up sales as you are busy making calls instead of waiting on the next customer in line. Besides paying the extra percentage for the hand entered sale you may also pay 95 cents for each voice authorized sale you do. Now that adds up to big bucks in no time at all.

Level Two:

This level of taking cards at shows involves some antique cell phone equipment. This is the system I am currently using and it will have to be replaced by the end of 2005. It involves an old Motorola 3 Watt Bag style phone, a modem that is attached to the phone and a credit card terminal. The credit card terminal requires an analog phone line to call in each sale. The modem adds a dial tone to the cell phone connection and eliminates the "Send" and "End" features of a cell call. The credit terminal I use runs off of 110 volt AC power which I bring to the shows by using a large marine type battery and a DC to AC converter. This system has been cumbersome to say the least but it has worked flawlessly since the early 80's and did the job until 2004. At that time the cell phone companies here began to remove the analog equipment from the towers making calls on the system shaky at several of our shows. There are other ways this is being done using battery operated terminals and the old bag style phones but I'm afraid the days for this system are numbered.

Level Three:

This level is using a radio style battery powered terminal. The most popular model is the Nurit but there are a few others on the circuit. This is a very efficient system provided you are close to a major city as that is where the towers for the required signal are. Get out of range and you are dead in the water. Some possessors will allow you an option of "Store and Forward" which works this way: You swipe the customers card, the credit card terminal prints a receipt for the customer to sign and another copy for you. The terminal does NOT call to see if the card is good; it only stores the information until you hook up to a land line phone or get back to where you have a radio signal. Then you send all of the sales to the processor and keep your finger crossed that none of them are declined. I find a system like this to be risky to say the least as half of the shows we do are out of radio range. On top of that some possessors do not allow this feature to be used with their terminals.

Level Four:

These terminals are just being introduced in the US. They operate on a standard digital cell phone frequency called GSM Wireless Network. Some others use a similar network called CDMA. They both use a GPRS Wireless Network and work with Verizon, Sprint or Cingular wireless. The problem with these is they are so new that most credit card processing companies do not offer them as of this writing. The 2 main models are both made by Verifone and are the Verifone Omni 3600 and the VeriFone Vx 610. It looks like they are the same machine and just sold under different names. This terminal is the one on my list of things to purchase this year because of the great coverage.

There is yet one more way to accept credit cards at shows using some brands and styles of cell phones that connect to the Internet. One is offered by Nextel and clips on the back of a small cell phone. It has the slider built in for swiping the cards and then connects to a wireless printer using blue tooth signals to print a receipt. Another system uses a cable to plug into a cell phone and has the swipper and printer built in. Both of these models show promise but they use an Internet based payment gateway which adds around $15 a month in fees on top of the $40 to $65 a month for the wireless service depending on the phone used. Along with the cell phone system there is also one offered that works with the Black Berry system that also uses an on-line gateway.

Maps of Terminal Reception

This first map shows the spotty coverage of the standard Nurit terminal using the Velocita network:

The areas in Yellow are the covered areas.

This second map shows the coverage of the Cingular GPRS - Edge service:

The areas in blue are the covered areas.

Before you jump on-line and order a terminal it would be a good idea to contact your credit card processor to see which type of systems they support. You may pay $1000 for a new system only to find out that you can not use it with your current processor.

In the last five years I have dug into the working of these machines and thought I had finally found something that would work. The Nurit 8000. I purchased it from my current processing company after reading several reviews on the great reception. What I didn't know was that they sold the Nurit 8000 Secure, which is the Nurit 8000 with the card slot for cell phone service sealed shut. The map they gave me for the coverage was the second map above. The REAL coverage is using the Velocita network managed by Cingular in the first map. This unit is now sitting here waiting for the RMA tag so I can return it as my processor does not allow the "Store and Forward" function mentioned above and the service area does not cover half of the shows I do. This mistake is the reason for this article which will be updated as new systems come available.

Updated 5/26/2006
After waiting for the Verifone VX 610 to be fully approved for use, it finally happened. I ordered this unit and it is now on the way. I can't wait to get my hands on it as we have a show in one week. After I give it a test drive, I'll update this page with the pro's and con's and post some links so you can check it out.

I took this unit to a show in Fairport, NY the first week in June and all I can say is "This baby screams!!!" it took on average 4 seconds to dial out, get approval and print out the receipt. I just love it.

This article was contributed by Conard.
Conard is a leather artist located in Western NY.

Leather-Man Blog