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Card reader/ POS for merch - anyone done this?


sprocketflup
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48 minutes ago, sprocketflup said:

Hi :)

 

My band is dipping its first tentative digits into the band merchandise maelstrom.

Has anyone had any experience with obtaining and using a card reader for the merch stand? Care to share your tips or horror stories here, coz I really haven't a clue where to start

 

TIA

It's not a bad idea but I think there are fees involved

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We're moving to this in the small press I work for: take the reader to events and no more cash tin hassles, or even notebook recording of sales as you can key in sales codes and it tracks the product. Not sure who makes it. Hmm.

There are various types - iZettl etc. and yes there are fees - but taking cash involves going to the bank to deposit it, or spending it and transferring the balance but making sure you definitely keep a track of who moved what and when.

It is a good idea from a buyer's perspective if they don't need to carry loads of cash for all their merch purchases. Also you will likely sell more as it's far easier to swipe, tap or pin than check your remaining cash and agonise over which merch stand's item you want the most.

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My experiences are within Norway, so maybe of limited value, but I deemed it better to tell you anyway.

Here, they can be rented (which I feel is kinda expensive) or bought. We bought ours for 800 quid, which was in the medium price range here, and after that investment I found the right M2M subscription and SIM card to equip it with, which cost a mere 2 quid per month, and the data traffic was virtually free. 

The machine was of a reputable brand, and technically has lasted for 14 years up to now without a hick-up, but a drawback was when the reputable brand dropped it off the updating service schemes - making it almost obsolete overnight.

Those 14 years also mean the battery was of great quality. Exchange batteries for these machines are likely very expensive, but one might be lucky and be able to find a machine that runs on standard rechargeable batteries.

"Problems" arose only in areas of bad reception/transmission, like some buildings and remote areas, but in that case a good machine has a second system where it stores all the deals and transmits them when it gets back into an area that is covered. In those cases, the operator had to check the identity of the buyer by looking at the card, and maybe making a note of some of the info. The drawback of that second system is that it can't control whether people really have the money in their account. For my firm this meant that we had some routines in stock for the extremely rare cases we thought the customer was trying to trick us. Merch is cheaper than what we sold, but we had the ideal market for trusting people, so that maybe evens it out.

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Avoid paypal one.

Theyre idiots. I used mine for business and they then kept all the money in the account and would only release a max of £400 a month, citing potential refunds. They said they could hold the money for 90 days!!

I went absolutely crazy at them and said they had no right to tell me when i could access my money. Frightening thing is, they took some convincing and i had to go through about 10 layers of complaints dept until they would release the rest.

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