I am new to Artfair Insiders, and am curious if there is ever a show in Springfield, Mo. I wanted to attend a show sometime. I am curious if most of the art shows are wall art.
I am a woodworker, and buid many different types of boxes, but have never set up at any show because of the expense in doing so, and the travel. I have no storage room for booth shelves and a canopy, ect. at this point. If I would do shows, I will have to make an investment in equipment.
I also have another question for anyone to answer. I have a website, and process credit cards through the websites sister company, but if I sell at a show; I will need a portable card processor, and don't want to spend a fortune on a new cell phone, and hire a computer guy to teach me how to use the system. I want a simple credit card scanner / processor that will make direct bank deposits, and send me an email re the deposit. Can someone recommend to me who they use.
Regards,
Bill Mieswinkel
Comments
Thank you so much!!! I'm going to copy and past this to my notes so I can share this with my husband and keep a copy in our folder that goes to shows. I hadn't even thought about snapping a pic of DL along with check and phone number. I had three sales that I took offline. As soon as the show was over I went back in and made sure they went through. I had to play around and get to a screen and actually send it. I would have thought that it would have automatically been processed as soon as we were connected again.. I did get confirmation and all $$ was deposited in our account. It will also show the same day so the customer won't get confused as to it being posted on a different day... I really appreciate your input!
A-hah! You both bring up excellent points that I wish to explain further due to experiences many people have had since going this route.
1. NEVER rely on storing the information to process later - EVER. They fail. Period. The end.
2. Always have a paper back-up plan. Not after the fact, before you even set-up.
A fellow exhibitor just lost over $5000 in sales from one day at one of our largest shows of the year, the same one where another exhibitor stole $3,000 in merchandise from me during breakdown so I am not perfect by any means. Back to her, the back-up plan on her device failed for her Saturday sales - she didn't have any connectivity and relied on "storing" it for later, now she is begging people to do the right thing and contact her - because - she didn't have a paper plan in place. Never do I trust electronics when it comes to money. Hence why the paypal sale has to be completed before I let a customer leave - I must have confirmation it went through.
It's very simple - purchase a few packs of those old style cc slips. If you have an old knuckle buster great - if not get one - or - hand write the following and I will explain why:
CC Number, Exp Date, name on card, code on back followed by:
their address and phone number (must have this one!)
Date and total amount of sale and their signature. Give them their copy, keep yours.
Because, (and I have had this happen and thank goodness had my plan in place) when you process that - it may not be on the same day as the actual sale. Here comes customer gets their bill and can't figure out what they purchased for that amount on the date their statement is showing - they tell their CC to cancel it.
You have the paper "contract" of the agreement right there to prove Joe did purchase this and the CC paper slips have wording to the effect that the customer agrees to pay that amount. You are covered, your provider and their provider honor that and you don't have to tear your hair out trying to prove anything.
I also hand-write sales slips and reference the number from the slip onto the CC paper slip so I have all cross-over documentation.
While it's a pain, and sometimes customers don't wish to go that route, it's YOUR back-up plan because you need to protect your paycheck. Ditto accepting checks (which I am seeing a rise in lately) - with your smartphone - just snap a picture of their drivers license along with the check and phone number and store it until everything processes.
This is called smart business on the road in this digital age when digital fails. Never count on any digital storage system to work - ever. I also had a failure with a swipe & store device about 8 years ago and learned my lesson. Never ever again.
Bill, I am a woodworker also and have been doing shows for about four years now. I use the Square card reader for accepting credit cards and it has no monthly fees and is extremely popular with the majority of artists doing shows... Additionally, I just switched to Consumer Cellular for my phone about two weeks ago and it is a big savings over the high priced monthly fee I was paying with ATT. Best of all it is a monthly contract and you can make changes to your plan at any time without any extra fees or activation costs. Instead of $62 a month with ATT I now pay $20...
Hi Carol!
We just did the same thing! We were on a plan with C-Spire and it ends this month. We went to Straight Talk at Walmart for $45 a month for more than I had for $65+ at Cspire. Clark Howard's website has great info on phones and plans that save so much. I will never have a plan again... We also have Paypal and Square. This past weekend at 12:30 the Square hung up and I wanted to pull my hair out. They do have an option that you can still take payments offline and then as soon as you get internet service the charges are processed. Still learning about that part. I manually went through and charged them because if they aren't processed within 72 hours they are deleted....not good. Paypal went down a few weeks ago in the middle of a show and they said they were doing an upgrade. They told me to write down all the info on paper and key it in later as it would be another 45 minutes before their system was up. I went ballistic---think I may have dropped the Fbomb and asked them if they really thought that in this day and age that people wanted me to record all their credit card info on a piece of paper and did I want to manually key it in later......aaaaack! I ended up hanging up and pulling out the square and went on with business.
I found out something interesting as a fluke a while back in regards to my smartphone and service. Mine is thru Verizon, and I continued to see offers for prepaid Verizon through Walmart (I know...just bear with me - it's because they have the kiosks set up in them). I can have almost the identical service I currently have with Verizon for almost $50 less per month with a prepay plan. Let me explain - this is not those throw-a-way phones. If you don't have a smart phone, you do have that investment, however Verizon views it this way-you pay more for the luxury of not having to pay your bill until after you incurred the fees - i.e. end of the month, so that costs more. If I prepay, I have the identical service for almost 40% less - just by paying for it on the front end. This one isn't rocket science. I am waiting for my contract to run-out and I am switching. I have to pay the bill regardless, who cares what date. So, if this is part of what is hanging you up about getting a smart phone - don't let it. Also check into Consumer Cellular. The usage of a swipe device is fantastic. I personally use Paypal with Square as my back-up. Paypal hits my account in 5 minutes max and the funds are ready to use. It's 2.7% fee, PLUS if you get the associated debit card attached to the account and USE it, you get a credit back into your account of 1% of all purchases you used the card for. Which means I am actually paying 1.7% fee in the end. Hope this helps. PS I also get much better connectivity to the servers on Saturdays from 10-2 when Square is using bogged down with not enough server access due to all the shows across the nation processing at the same time.
Yes Bill, there are all kinds of art sold at art shows. Wall art isn't all there is. I know we have woodworkers here. Put woodworker into our search bar up in the right hand corner. You will see there are lots of woodworkers here earning a living from their work.
Your boxes will be welcomed at shows.
What is the name of your website?
Do a search for Springfield Missouri art show. Also contact the Best of Missouri Hands and look into joining the organization.
As for taking credit cards, a lot of artists are now using their smart phone or tablet with a simple swiper that plugs into the headphone jack. There are alternatives, like the companies that advertise on this web site. Personally though I use my ipad with a swiper at shows (The Square), I still use a credit card machine connected to my telephone at home. I use http://teamacinc.com as my processor.
Larry Berman
http://BermanGraphics.com
412-401-8100