subject: Processing Credit Cards at Art Shows and Craft Festivals [print this page] Processing Credit Cards at Art Shows and Craft Festivals
Choosing to accept credit card payments from your art show and craft festival customers can be a great move for your business. Many people don't carry anything but plastic anymore. If lots of people without cash or checks on them come through your booth, you're likely to lose their business by not taking credit cards. The process of actually taking plastic cards during shows and festivals isn't that hard, and it's certainly worthwhile for your business.
The best thing you can do is apply for a merchant account with the bank you already work with. In order to apply to process credit cards, you'll probably have to consent to a credit check. You're more likely to get a good account with a bank who knows your banking history, even if it's just a small local bank. Many banks offer options for small businesses, and these are the options you want to work with.
For shows and festivals, you can actually get a mobile credit card machine. Some of these machines work off of cell phone signals. As long as you can get a signal, you'll be able to process cards at your booth. This can be a good option if you find yourself travelling a lot. You may have to fill out a special application to be able to do this, though.
Keep in mind that when you offer credit card processing, you'll probably have to pay processing fees. You may need to raise your prices a bit to compensate for this. Another option is to only process cards for orders over a certain amount. If you have to pay $1 per card process, you may want to steer clear of processing cards for orders that are less than $5.
You may have to play around with offering cards for a while. Make sure you can take some of the more popular credit card companies. You don't have to offer unlimited payment options, though. As long as you can take MasterCard and Visa, you should be just fine. The chances of your customers having cards other than those are getting slimmer by the day, and most people will have at least one of these companies' cards, even if they also have cards from lesser known credit card companies.
