Final Chapter in my Saga to accept credit cards at craft shows.
Part 1 can be found here. Part 2 here.
This blog is about my real world experience using Intuits GoPayment to accept credit cards at craft shows.
We were really excited to get our first credit card sale. The lady was also excited that she could use her card at a vendor even though there was an ATM on site. She was curious about my credit card contraption but overall she was impressed. However, I should have tested it once I hooked the card reader in. I didn't realize you couldn't just hook it up and then take the reader off and put it back on again. It needs to stay on.
So for the first CC I accepted I had to manually enter in all the info. Still not bad! I emailed the lady a receipt and immediately also received an email confirming the charge. You can also go to your “Past Charges” and it will show you if the transaction cleared. After that, it was pretty much clear sailing. We had several sales that day. A few cards were stubborn and needed to be swiped more than once, but that’s usual for any type of swiper. Even though some people were curious about it no one seemed put off or nervous to use it, and some didn’t even ask for a receipt. Most people have heard of Intuit and recognize the name, so that really helped with the trust factor. The swiper has an Intuit lanyard on it and people really identified with that! You hear QuickBooks, Turbo Tax and Mint mentioned a lot. I even met a guy who works for Intuit, so that was cool! After the craft show, I went straight into my intuit account and it showed all the charges. Then, after a couple of days, the money was transferred to my bank account with no problems. You can also go onto your intuit account and see what the fees were in your statement section.
Tips:
Be sure to go to your Intuit settings to make sure your swiper is connected and activated, especially if you remove and then replace the swiper at anytime. Also be sure that your volume is turned all the way up. If it is going to be a while between swipes, log out of your phone app after each transaction. My last show was slow and it would let me go through the whole process until I clicked charge, then it would make me log back in and go through the whole process again! That made me worry about double charges. But, thankfully, that didn't happen. It's simple to make sure that it doesn't charge twice, just check your Past Charges before you retry the transaction.
PLEASE check the customers drivers license and make sure it matches with the CC info. If you want to be extra cautious, write out a paper receipt and record their drivers license number and address and get them to sign it. That way, if the charge is ever disputed, you can prove that you had every reason to believe the person was legit.
I have an Android Phone, so some of these tips may not apply if you have an iPhone.
Check out YouTube for videos on the GoPayment App for even more tips.
I hope these blog post have been informative for you. Please feel free to ask any questions you may still have.
women! She also made me this valance and a