I just read an article in the Business section of the September 30 edition of the New York Times. There was a 3/4 page article by David Pogue. It describes in detail about the new Square credit card reader that connects to the iPhone or iPad headphone jack.

This 1 inch x 1 inch device allows you to swipe a credit card to process sales. What is most impressive is that there is no contract, no minimum transaction fees, even if you have no sales. According to the article, the charge is 2.75% of the total charge and 15 cents per transaction fee. That is it. It doesn't matter if the charge is $1 or $1,000. To sign your name, you scrawl with your finger where it says "sign here."

The article is on his blog: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/30/technology/personaltech/30pogue.html?_r=1&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss

I don't have stock in the company but wish I did. This seems huge for small businesses. They are also positioning the device for individuals who sell on Craig's List, etc. You can also accept credit card payments without the card itself, say over the phone for 3.5% charge. The company's chief exective is Jack Dorsey who co-founded Twitter.

I wanted to make sure all of the exhibitors out there know about this interesting change in the credit card processing world.
Howard Rose
Rose Squared Productions, Inc.
www.rosesquared.com

Hi Howard,

Just wanted to mention that I just received my Square last week and had an opportunity to try it out this past weekend. I absolutely love it!! It is simple to use and tiny, and customers get a kick out of watching it in use.

Another plus is the rate. While 2.75% may initially seem high, do what I did: take your regular merchant account and divide the amount they charge you per month - including monthly fees and discount rates - and divide that by the total amount you rang up. I have excellent rates for MC and VISA - less than 2%. But when you factor in the amount they add to your fees for rewards cards and such, and also add in the monthly fees, my net rate averaged over 4%. Quite a difference, as with Square there is no additional fees other than the 2.75% + $0.15 per transaction.

I will probably have a review of it on my site in the coming weeks once I get a chance to use it more.

I just saw the website for this yesterday. What an incredible Idea That I WISH I'D THOUGH OF FIRST! I believe the website is www.squareup.com (disclosure: I get nothing for posting this). I just think it's a really great tool and will definitely come in handy when I do shows this coming spring and summer. Now I just need to get my hands on one!

-BBob

I've used it for 4 shows now. Love it. Say goodbye to the big banks and thier ridiculous fees

Art Gypsy,

have you run into any issues with the delay in receiving funds or hold ups with Square freezing your funds until they went through. One of our concerns in our review of square is hearing from small business owners who were running into issues with their account. The other big factor that we've been concerned about is the "chargeback" fear which is that we've heard horror stories from some artisans who sold their piece, processed through Square and had the person who bought the piece say they never made the purchase and square jsut reversed the payment without any recourse for the artist.

Any experiences you've had would be a huge help. Thanks.

I belong to a few other forums and I must say I am surprised that this forum allows for posts by companies fishing for information for both insurance and credit card processing. I was hoping to find more posting from artist like myself looking for information and advice on issues. However, I keep coming across these postings by businesses looking for information on their competitors. Not to say these two topics are not issues for Artist but it seem a little blatant, as least you aren’t hiding, you have your website listed under your name. I also understand this site gets it money from its advertising, seems this information would be better posted under a Vendor or Preferred Vendor section.

As far as I'm concerned, these are issues also. There are so many rip offs in the credit card processing business, I'm happy to at least see someone trying to help out.
The Square alone is a major topic on the other forums also. And there seems to be some issue with security at this time.
Another constant question raised is insurance. So an agent of RLI posts. It's really no big deal.

But if you have something else in mind that is a concern to you, by all means post it.