Prep for the Holidays EP13: Payment Processor Freak Outs at Markets (and how to avoid them!)

For Week 13 of Prep for the Holidays we're talking about how to accept payments at your holiday events, markets and pop-ups. You're going to need a payment processor! And if you've already got one, you've probably had at least one freakout moment with your payment processor hardware or software. 

So, let's talk about what you'll need and a quick checklist of what double (triple, quadruple) check before each market so you can avoid those panic inducing moments of wonky tech and instead, focus on market customers!

This episode is brought to you by our Premium Subscriber Community on Patreon and Buzzsprout

You can find Melissa at finelimedesigns.com, finelimeillustrations.com or on Instagram @finelimedesigns.

Chapters

• 0:00 Payment Processor Prep for Markets
• 13:51 Promoting Podcast Series for Holidays

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:00

Hello everyone and welcome to another episode of our Prep for the Holidays mini-sewed series. I think this brings us up to episode 13, and it is a very, very warm October day today. That's hence the tank top today and no hoodie. And I have to apologize, I've got all my windows in the studio open because it is quite stuffy in here today and there's a lot of construction going on outside. My mic is usually pretty good at filtering that out, but if you do hear a bit of hammering and stuff, that's what's going on. So, on that note, let's get on with this week's episode.

Speaker 1: 0:41

So, if you're new here, our Prep for the Holidays mini sewed series is a series of very short episodes that we have been running since the late summer to help you get ready for the busy holiday season, whether you are a maker, an artist, a content creator or a creative services professional. Q4 is a big time of year for almost all of us and there's a lot of prep that goes into it, especially if you want to have a smooth season where you can focus on selling, packing, shipping, all those things that help bring in the dollars. So the more prepared you can be ahead of time the better, and today's episode is very specific and if you are not, this is more aimed towards the makers and the artists in our group here. If you are a creative services provider, this may not apply to you, and if you're a content creator, this is probably not the episode for you. But if you are a maker or an artist and if you're a creative service provider who is going to be doing any kind of events or markets or in-person sessions, this may work for you as well, because we're going to be talking about payment processors.

Speaker 1: 1:58

So payment processors are the companies that you use to be able to accept payments at markets and, in some cases, on your website as well, depending on the type of setup you have, and there's a number of different payment processors out there. I am not familiar with them all. The only one that I use is Shopify, because I have a Shopify website, so I use Shopify's POS and their payment processor. But there are others out there. There is Square, there is Stripe and I believe there are a few more. Particularly if you're in the United States, I think you can also take things like Venmo, which we don't have here in Canada. There's also e-transfers, which Canadians love but aren't particularly well suited to market situations, but they're definitely a way that you can accept electronic payments. So that is something to think about.

Speaker 1: 2:54

I wanted to bring this one up because at every single market I do, I have a freak out moment over my payment processor, and I just did my first market of the season a couple of weeks ago. It was a pop-up and there was at least three, maybe four other vendors at this pop-up and it was a small pop-up. There was only 12 or 13 of us who also had some minor payment processor freak out moments. So if you are doing your first market and you haven't figured out how you're going to accept digital payments, this is something you want to think about. And even if you already are accepting digital payments through a payment processor, just a few things you might want to add to your checklist so that we can minimize the freak out moments at our markets. So, if you're brand new to this, most markets now people expect to be able to pay with their debit card, with a credit card, and now even more so with things like Apple Pay, google Pay, those types of services. So it's very rare these days that I am offered cash, although I did notice at my last market and this was very interesting that many people asked me which I would prefer cash or card, and I am always of the opinion that whatever is easiest for the customer is easiest for me.

Speaker 1: 4:19

But you should be aware that when you accept payment via card, there are processing fees. You can't escape it. It doesn't matter which platform you use, there are processing fees. Anyone who runs a bricks and mortar shop has been dealing with processing fees for decades like since credit cards came into existence, probably. So you will always lose a small percentage of the sale to those processing fees. Usually there's a transaction fee and then there's a processing fee, and it's usually somewhere in the two to three percent range of the overall purchase. So that is something to keep in mind. However, it is a very expected way to pay. Today. A lot of people don't carry cash, so not being able to accept cards can limit who can purchase from you, and a lot of people don't even carry their wallets anymore. They just have their phone, and so they want to be able to use things like Apple Pay or Google Pay, so being able to offer those is a bonus for you. So if you have markets coming up this season and you haven't figured out how you're going to accept digital payments, now is the time to do that.

Speaker 1: 5:28

It does require that you have a device that can be tapped. So I don't have mine handy here or I would hold it up. I have a Shopify's wise terminal terminal. It just it's just a little terminal I hold up and people just tap their card to it. They also have the option to insert their chip card and key in their, their pin number, and the same with square it's also. It's just a small square thing that you tap and you pay, and it's very simple. It means you don't have to handle of the day for my bookkeeper to reconcile everything, and I can see instantly at any point during the day how much I have done in sales without having to keep track of it manually. It's super simple.

Speaker 1: 6:26

If you don't have a Shopify store, you obviously can't use Shopify, and so in those cases you'd be looking at something like Square, which I think is probably the most commonly used one at most markets. So you will need to first apply to be able to become what's known as a merchant on these platforms, and then you will have to purchase your equipment that people will be able to tap and swipe their cards on, and you'll have to wait for that to arrive. So this is not something you want to do the day before your first market. It is definitely something that you need to plan in advance for, and I would say that if you are listening to this right now and you don't have a payment processor set up and you have markets coming up and you want to use that, you need to get on it today. So, yes, now if you already have a payment processor system, then you know that things can happen. It's technology and so you never know. It's always really great to be prepared.

Speaker 1: 7:38

When I did my most recent market a couple of weeks ago, I remembered the night before that I hadn't used my Shopify terminal in since the spring, when I did spring markets, and so I reminded myself I needed to pull it out and charge it, which I did. I plugged it in and charged it, and I was very proud of myself for remembering to do that and thinking I was ahead of the game. The market just happened to be down the street from my house and we had a very generous two hours setup time before we needed to be ready to go, and initially I was thinking I don't have, I'll show up an hour beforehand. You know, I don't have a lot to set up. I have a smaller table this year, etc. Etc. And it's very close, but I don't know.

Speaker 1: 8:24

There was something nagging in the back of my head that said just go, just make sure your tech is working. And I'm so glad I did, because I completely forgot when I was charging my terminal. I didn't actually test it out at home as I should have done. So this is tip number one Make sure you test your tech before you need it. So like the night before. So when I got to the venue and I turned it on and I always do a test transaction with my own card on something very small, just to make sure that the transaction goes through and I went to do that and nothing happened. And then I got a message saying that the terminal needed to update its software, which is something I always do the night before. But for whatever reason, I forgot this time. So that is something you definitely want to make sure you do before you head out to a market the night before.

Speaker 1: 9:19

Make sure that the software is all updated, make sure that it hooks up to your device. So whether I hook mine up to my iPad, you might hook yours up to your phone, your device. So, whether I use, I hook mine up to my iPad, you might hook yours up to your phone. Whatever it is that you hook your device up to make sure it's hooked up to it, make sure that it sees it, make sure that you can run a transaction through, and it will tell you if it needs to do a software update. The thing with software updates is you need to be able to plug the device in while it's happening.

Speaker 1: 9:46

You may not have a lot of access to electrical at your market and if you do, a lot of people might be trying to share it. You don't know how long it's going to take for the software to download. You don't know what the wifi situation is going to be. That's another thing. You need to have wifi accessibility to be able to use your payment processor, so you need to think about that.

Speaker 1: 10:08

In this case, the venue offered us access to their wifi, but very often I have to set up my phone as a hotspot in order for this to work. My iPad does not have data and so I need to set it up my phone up as a hotspot. My iPad talks to the hotspot that's how I get my data and then my iPad talks to the little device, and so you want to make sure that's all working smoothly. You want to make sure you have a backup plan. If there's no Wi-Fi at the venue, can you use your phone as a hotspot? Do you have another device that has data that you can use? Those types of things?

Speaker 1: 10:47

You want to make sure you have that all working and, like I said, you don't know how long a software update is going to take. In this case it took about 25 minutes. So if I had shown up when I had originally planned to show up, I wouldn't have finished updating before the event started. But because I had gone earlier that little nagging feeling I was able to get things hooked up. Sometimes the devices aren't really good at telling you where they are in the process, so you don't know and you're just sitting there hoping it's going to work and it's just always. There's just always some niggly little thing that happens with them. So you definitely want to make sure that you give yourself lots of time to test it out. Test it out at home first, when you get to the venue, test it out right away, make sure it's working. It will just give you so much peace of mind, because I don't know about you, but every time there's an issue I just feel that sheer panic in my in my chest that you know. Oh no, I'm I'm screwed.

Speaker 1: 11:48

My very first market where this happened. I was woefully unprepared. I fortunately had a friend helping me out and between the two of us and Googling a lot, we figured it out and got it working. And, as I said, at this past market, several people had issues getting theirs to work as well, especially if it's the first market that you've done in a while. If you do markets every week, you're probably good and you probably know the drill. But if you only do spring markets and winter markets and you take the summer off or any of those types of things, yeah. So make sure you're charged, make sure your software is up to date, make sure you're connected properly, make sure that you have a backup plan for wifi and test it out with a transaction when you get to the venue just something small, a dollar and make sure that it works so that you are ready to go. And if you can't make it work, make sure that you are prepared for cash. That's the best you can do in those circumstances.

Speaker 1: 12:49

So that an oddly specific episode this week. But I wanted to make sure I bring it up because I just I know how terrifying it can be when something's not working, but also because every market I do, there is at least one or two people that has a moment where they're trying to get their payment processor to work, and it's a struggle. So the more prepared you can be, the better. This is also another great reason why it's so great to get to know other vendors at markets so that if you are struggling, you can ask for help. Markets so that if you are struggling, you can ask for help. There's not a lot of Shopify vendors at the markets I do, but I know who the ones that use Shopify are. So now if I have an issue, I know I usually know the people I can go to who might be able to help me. So that's really handy too. So you know. Another great case for getting to know your booth neighbors at events. So that is it for this week's Prep for the Holidays episode.

Speaker 1: 13:51

If you are enjoying this series, please give us a like on your favorite podcast app or a star rating and if you are watching on YouTube, please give this episode a thumbs up and if you're enjoying the series, please subscribe. And if you have friends or family who you think would find this really useful, pass the episode along to them and ask them to subscribe to the podcast. We are well into season six now and we are well on our way through to getting through this particular Prep for the Holidays mini-sode series. Also, I will just mention on YouTube, because this is the only place that I can really do this, but on we have a playlist with all the Prep for the Holidays episodes that you can listen to if you are late to the series or if you just want a refresher on particular episodes. That's a really great place to go, where you can access all of them very easily on our YouTube channel. So that is it for today's episode and I will be back next week with another prep for the holidays mini sew series.