This totally should have been 2 posts but I am so horrible at getting things posted lately I thought it best to go ahead with one ginormous one.
So this weekend is Brookings SD big 41st year Art in the Park. Anyone in the neighborhood swing by. It is supposed to be a beautiful weekend. I am where I always am except perhaps 20 feet to the North. Something about construction. I don’t know.
So in preparation I washed the van of the past 2 weeks gravel road dust and bird poo. (You can tell the mulberries are ripe.)
Being the person that I am of course I have no car shampoo? Car soap? Whatever the heck it is you use to wash cars. (My van is too big to fit in a car wash … plus I live about 30 miles from the nearest one.)
So what’s a girl to do. I usually use dish soap but I heard that has a harsh effect of the shiny coating. Something milder than dish soap eh? Bodywash.
Yup. So now my van smells of Caress’s Sheer Twilight. Which is a lovely seductive scent which totally does not at all belong on a big ass van. So passerbys will be entranced, aroused and finally confused.
Your welcome world.
Kicking and Screaming
Most folks are surprised that until pretty much last week I did not accept credit cards at art fairs. There were several reasons for this.
* It was cost prohibitive. Meaning between the equipment fees, monthly fees, swipe fees and finally a transaction fee I would have to raise my prices to make up for the lost income. So would you want to pay more in order to use your card? Yeah I thought not.
* I didn’t actually lose many sales. Everyone tells me my sales will go up. Fact is I don’t think so. Or at least it will be a marginal increase. Most have committed to buying an item and have it in their hot little hands when they approach me. My last event I lost exactly $20 in sales from not accepting cards. I’d say around 50% ask but when they find out I don’t they whip out cash or the checkbook.
* One less thing to deal with. In the end I am lazy about somethings and technology is one of them. My life is complicated enough without having to charge your $3 purchase.
So why did I finally come kicking and screaming into the merchant world?
Square.com
Okay so I don’t usually promote things like this and as yet I haven’t used it in a real world application other than to charge myself a $1 as a practice go. But I have talked to many many artists who have used it and love it.
* No equipment fees. No monthly fees. No swipe fees. And just 2.75% of the transaction is taken from each sale.
* Easy to set up an account. I set up an account in less than 15 minutes and the swipe reader arrived 4 business days later.
* It’s easy easy easy to use. You don’t need a degree in computer science to work it. In fact it is pretty much just three steps. Log into your account. Plug your swipe reader into your smart phone, laptop tablet etc. Swipe card. Okay there is a couple more steps. You can set up for it to add sales tax automatically. The customer signs for it and you can email or text them a receipt. But that’s it. Then a couple of days later the money shows up in your bank account or paypal or whatever.
Sweet.
At any rate I’ll let you know how it goes and if I have any problems.
So all of you wanting an original Mona Majororwicz but wished to pay with credit card … Bring it on!
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