Accepting Credit Cards at Shows and Parties

by Doug Kelly
(Blairsville, GA)

One of the questions I have always had was what forms of payment would I accept when I was at a show or doing a party?

The obvious answers were cash and checks.

If you don't know by now, you are losing sales if you do not accept credit cards. On my website I accept credit cards, PayPal and Google Checkout - maximizing the payment choices.

But what if I am at a fair, expo, show or jewelry party?

Well I could use the old knuckle-buster and make an impression of the card and do manual batches when I got home.

But there's a risk, a big risk; you don't know if the card is any good until AFTER you do the batch and by then your merchandise is on it's way down the highway with its new owner. Scratch that idea.

I use Quickbooks and their merchant service has an option when I sign up to accept credit cards (as well as checks) with my laptop. However, because I am not swiping the card, I get mid-qualified rates (not the best for my buck).

And the other part of this problem is what if the host or people putting on the show/party do not have Internet or WiFi access? Back to doing the batch without a pre-auth after I get home. Bleccch.

Recently I had purchased a Motorola Droid touch pad cell phone.

I noted that Intuit (the Quickbooks Merchant Services people) have a downloadable app that lets you take credit cards via your cell phone!!!

Great as long as you can get cell phone service wherever you are, which is most places nowadays. You can log in to the app and enter the info and the pre-auth is performed and you can send a receipt via email or text msg to the card holder. Sweet!

It gets better!

Intuit also sells 2 devices from MagTek, both Bluetooth capable.

The first is a card swipe which will allow you to get the best/lowest fees and the other is a card swipe/printer combo that prints the signature ticket on the spot for the customer to sign.

Yes I pay $15 more per month for the service, and no minimum, but it sure is worth it.

Plus it all ties into my Quickbooks accounting AND I get email receipts of each charge as well.

Now we have choices.

Doug Kelly
JD Kelly Jewelry