A new way to accept credit cards

[Generic]

A friend is interested in the swipe machine that will attach to a smartphone. Anyone here using one? What do you think? Do these also work with tablets? Of course the tablet would have to have wi fi or 4 g connection to use it. She wants to use a shows where she sells her jewelry..

Most of the vendors at our farmers market use this and they love it. It is a flat % no matter what card someone is using. As relatively few people have a plain vanilla card nowadays, it is probably pretty close to what we're paying by having the machine and all the attendent fees. I think it is 2.75%.
If your friend is selling at fairs and the like I think she'll really like not having to turn away potential buyers because she doesn't have the means to run cc's.
I would seriously consider this when my card machine dies. The customer gets a receipt emailed to them if they want one. The funds are deposited the next day, which most processors don't do.
Do not know if it works with a tablet but it should say that on the Square website.
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I checked up and you don't have to pay for the reader, so I guess it's fine. But I would start asking the question of what they are going to do as EMV comes into place and you will have to read a chip instead of a magnetic strip.
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It is possible that we will see strip/chip cards for awhile here. I had a guest the other day with a chip card, but it still had the strip. We can handle all of the cards from Europe for some reason, unless they are getting special cards to travel here. I guess when we travel to Europe next year we should find out if our old strip-type cards will be accepted.
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Unless we go en masse to chip cards here in the States quickly (which is not going to happen), I can't imagine merchants in Europe not accepting swipe cards. They can run the magnetic stripe/swipe cards on their machines...they usually ask. It's no biggie. The chip cards are supposedly more secure.
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If you see the link below, you will see that there is now an official roadmap for chips in the US. Or see corporate.visa.com/newsroom/press-releases/press1142.jsp
I assume since the liability shift is scheduled for 1 October 2015 according to Visa, that your cards and your machines will be ready by that time.
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That's about 3 1/2 years away and it's only one type of bank card...plus, there are a plethora of private label cards. The operative word was quickly in my post. The technology is already in place in many respects. My dh works in the industry for the largest credit card processor in the U.S. ....
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That's ALL processors. Visa, MasterCard, Discover and American Express are all basically on the same roadmap with the same basic dates.
As I said, square works for now and the stripe reader is free. But in the long term it's going to have to change. Even if they don't install chip&pin, they will install chip instead of swipe. So if someone is buying equipment, they should think about that, as everything will be obsolete.

 

[Madeleine]

A friend is interested in the swipe machine that will attach to a smartphone. Anyone here using one? What do you think? Do these also work with tablets? Of course the tablet would have to have wi fi or 4 g connection to use it. She wants to use a shows where she sells her jewelry..

Most of the vendors at our farmers market use this and they love it. It is a flat % no matter what card someone is using. As relatively few people have a plain vanilla card nowadays, it is probably pretty close to what we're paying by having the machine and all the attendent fees. I think it is 2.75%.
If your friend is selling at fairs and the like I think she'll really like not having to turn away potential buyers because she doesn't have the means to run cc's.
I would seriously consider this when my card machine dies. The customer gets a receipt emailed to them if they want one. The funds are deposited the next day, which most processors don't do.
Do not know if it works with a tablet but it should say that on the Square website.
.

I checked up and you don't have to pay for the reader, so I guess it's fine. But I would start asking the question of what they are going to do as EMV comes into place and you will have to read a chip instead of a magnetic strip.
.

It is possible that we will see strip/chip cards for awhile here. I had a guest the other day with a chip card, but it still had the strip. We can handle all of the cards from Europe for some reason, unless they are getting special cards to travel here. I guess when we travel to Europe next year we should find out if our old strip-type cards will be accepted.
.

Unless we go en masse to chip cards here in the States quickly (which is not going to happen), I can't imagine merchants in Europe not accepting swipe cards. They can run the magnetic stripe/swipe cards on their machines...they usually ask. It's no biggie. The chip cards are supposedly more secure.
.

If you see the link below, you will see that there is now an official roadmap for chips in the US. Or see corporate.visa.com/newsroom/press-releases/press1142.jsp
I assume since the liability shift is scheduled for 1 October 2015 according to Visa, that your cards and your machines will be ready by that time.
.

I assume since the liability shift is scheduled for 1 October 2015 according to Visa, that your cards and your machines will be ready by that time.

I will need to buy a machine in that case as the one I have they don't want to support. We had a problem with it and the solution was to buy a new one. The processor we go thru won't fix it.

 

[Samster]

People on the PAII forum are liking this. They say it is a bit more in charges but that once you find out all the charges your processor is really charging you it's not any more expensive. It's a flat rate I think they said. I'm just repeating..we are talking about the Square. right?
RIki.

Riki, a friend of mine who has a dog training biz is using Square and it's fantastic for her because it's portable & attaches to her smart phone. The rates through Square are very reasonable. The device was cheap. Her average charge is probably comparable to a room night or two, also.

 

[Generic]

A friend is interested in the swipe machine that will attach to a smartphone. Anyone here using one? What do you think? Do these also work with tablets? Of course the tablet would have to have wi fi or 4 g connection to use it. She wants to use a shows where she sells her jewelry..

Most of the vendors at our farmers market use this and they love it. It is a flat % no matter what card someone is using. As relatively few people have a plain vanilla card nowadays, it is probably pretty close to what we're paying by having the machine and all the attendent fees. I think it is 2.75%.
If your friend is selling at fairs and the like I think she'll really like not having to turn away potential buyers because she doesn't have the means to run cc's.
I would seriously consider this when my card machine dies. The customer gets a receipt emailed to them if they want one. The funds are deposited the next day, which most processors don't do.
Do not know if it works with a tablet but it should say that on the Square website.
.

I checked up and you don't have to pay for the reader, so I guess it's fine. But I would start asking the question of what they are going to do as EMV comes into place and you will have to read a chip instead of a magnetic strip.
.

It is possible that we will see strip/chip cards for awhile here. I had a guest the other day with a chip card, but it still had the strip. We can handle all of the cards from Europe for some reason, unless they are getting special cards to travel here. I guess when we travel to Europe next year we should find out if our old strip-type cards will be accepted.
.

Unless we go en masse to chip cards here in the States quickly (which is not going to happen), I can't imagine merchants in Europe not accepting swipe cards. They can run the magnetic stripe/swipe cards on their machines...they usually ask. It's no biggie. The chip cards are supposedly more secure.
.

If you see the link below, you will see that there is now an official roadmap for chips in the US. Or see corporate.visa.com/newsroom/press-releases/press1142.jsp
I assume since the liability shift is scheduled for 1 October 2015 according to Visa, that your cards and your machines will be ready by that time.
.

I assume since the liability shift is scheduled for 1 October 2015 according to Visa, that your cards and your machines will be ready by that time.

I will need to buy a machine in that case as the one I have they don't want to support. We had a problem with it and the solution was to buy a new one. The processor we go thru won't fix it.
.

I'm sure that part of the roadmap will likely deal with upgrades and replacements. You might find that as it gets closer and closer the companies get more competitive with the costs considering that they don't want to lose customers. My guess is that you may find that it's a way that some processors will try to get customers to switch over, so it might cost you next to nothing.
But the situation isn't the same for us, most of us don't own the machines. I certainly don't. It's part of the service around here. Funny, though, that so many of the same processors do business different, right next door to each other.