the iphone app by Square with the CC swiping mechanism seems to be a promising tool for us wedding photographers (i'm trying to be one anyways). i've been following this product since it was announced. i personally would have design the swiping mechanism better since it seems to be flimsy and a little unwieldy to use (i finished school with a product design degree if anyone cares). but overall i've seen some demonstrations on the device and it looks promising. i'll will update u guys about this if there is any new info and news on the product.
We swayed back and forth on this topic for a long time. We never lost a client due to not accepting credit cards and losing 2% of $5,000 was a decent amount of money.
In the end, we shot a few events that warranted credit card payments on-site so we went with Intuit's GoPayment. It tied nicely into our Quickbooks and they gave us a free bluetooth swiper that works beautifully with our Blackberries.
We haven't opened it up to our wedding clients yet. Anyone can already use credit cards for our print sales online so it would really just be for deposits and payments.
Square, is the compnay that Mr. Hoffer was speaking of. Theres a section to sign up to be notified when it is available.
Also looks to be compatable with the Android and Iphone OS
TTLKurtis wrote:
The whole signature with your finger thing on the iPhone looks less than promising for the iPhone with the Square.
I'm quite happy using CC Terminal on my iPhone. Works very well.
Kurtis, I am not familiar with the Apps for phones and I noticed you said the 3% Paypal fee was a deal breaker in another reply. Do these apps/cc companies not charge a monthly fee, so much per transaction and a 1 to 3% fee also?
Reason I ask is I used to run an ISP and know what fees they used to charge us but I sold out about 3 threes ago so things could have changed. Thanks
g-money wrote:
Kurtis, I am not familiar with the Apps for phones and I noticed you said the 3% Paypal fee was a deal breaker in another reply. Do these apps/cc companies not charge a monthly fee, so much per transaction and a 1 to 3% fee also?
Reason I ask is I used to run an ISP and know what fees they used to charge us but I sold out about 3 threes ago so things could have changed. Thanks
Greg
Well, to me Paypal is less professional, though I will accept it if asked. So to pay 3% for it, I'd rather have the more professional solution (credit cards).
The actual terms will vary depending on the processor you use, etc.
I use an IPhone App called Transactions Light. It was free, it only allows 2 transactions a day, which for a photographer is plenty. It connects through an Authorize.net account. Cool thing is that account works for the iphone app, connects to my shopping cart and shootq.
If any of you have questions about a real merchant account you can contact Ryan Kenny at 303.875.0621 www.photographymerchantsystems.com
He is a really nice guy and will answer all your questions even if you don't end up going with him. I know a few of us on the board use him, Me, Evan Baines, Steve Tinetti to name a few.
I have always taken credit cards except for American Express as their charge to merchants is to high. It has also helped with reprints from family and friends and it gives an option to out of towners who do not have Pay-Pal.
With the massive number of ID thefts I prefer to limit my exposure and use Paypal for all my CC transactions. This way I don't ever come in contact with the buyers personal card information. Just one less thing to worry about. They go to a paypal site and paypal handles all the security issues. I would agree in the past using paypal may not have been professional looking but today many of the large companies have an paypal option. I prefer to use it myself when paying and don't want a new company to have my cc information on file. It works good for my small cc volume. Large volume would be another thing.
I just signed up for squreup and I don't see why everyone wouldn't at least have this... No monthly fees, free to get it all set up.... Was it 2.75%? Less than pay pal. I can send receipts for cash as well, set up all my packages and extras, and it's like a dam cash register! Even send the location from gps that you did the trAnsaction from. He'll even if you got the free app just for the cash receipts... Great on the android even better on the iPad! Can be branded with your logo, picture of the item... Amazing!
