The Framers Forum

I use izettle They're great for small traders free machine, no setup costs & a 1.5% to 2.5% charge & no other charges.
Money in bank almost Immediately. You can also print or email receipts, which is handy because you can build a mailing list of your customers, the App also gives you a full breakdown of all transaction's, and they message you to let you know they've paid the money into the Bank, Never had any problems with them at all.

I am using iZettle in our new gallery, we paid for the unit with the display as I thought it might give customers unfamiliar with the system more confidence. Everything about it is 5 star. I have not done a price comparison as yet but I have a feeling that I may well change to iZettle in our main Gallery when the contract ends on our 'traditional' machine.

We use an iPad as a till, with an app call Quicksale, which wirelessly pings the till and prints the receipts, the iZettle integrates perfectly with this system. We enter the items, hit the payment button and select the credit card option then select iZettle and it instantly puts the amount in the unit and asks you to insert the card, a couple of seconds later it is all done. We had an American customer yesterday who needed to sign rather then enter a pin and it asks him to sign on the iPad screen!

Its a great system. The Quicksale has a free option to try if I remember correctly, it costs about £20 for the wireless till and printer option.

iZettle here as well, contactless and no upper limit with Apple pay either

Gees, based on all this feedback guys, I don't think you'll be surprised to hear we've opted for the iZettle too, we've gone for the upgraded handset thing - it looks a bit better

Thanks for all the comments - it has made the process incredibly easy

It looks as if everyone is settling for iZettle (sorry)

Any comments or thoughts on PayPal? I'm setting up a folksy.com account (to sell my lettering and calligraphy) for which I need a Paypal account. Seems sensible to keep everything in one place.

The future looks like Apple Pay, but how is that working with all these mobile readers?

Thanks for all the posts, very helpful

Jonathan

It's been almost a year since I went with PayPal Here and while the app and payments system is very good it has been let down by a poor card reader. Battery life is not good and it's hard to tell when the thing is powered off so it can die quickly if you're not careful.

PayPal have released a new version of the reader with contactless and a digital display showing battery life etc but I'd be wary...

Dave E wrote:Battery life is not good and it's hard to tell when the thing is powered off so it can die quickly if you're not careful.

If at a fair, I take one of these with me:

[/url]

Enough battery to recharge an iPad, a couple of iPhones and your paypal charger. Never run out of power again!

I used payleven for a while but it was just a pita.
I've just been looking at worldpay which is consistantly cheaper that payleven and runs through the phoneline. A bit dearer to start out but that would be saved in no time in comparison to payleven.

I was looking at worldpay Zinc. RBS customers could get the lower rates at no extra charge but they seem to have stopped that deal now.

Quick update if anyone's interested..... we've been using iZettle now for a few days and ...... it's just brilliant. Couldn't be easier to setup & use. The only niggle I have & it's not a negative with iZettle is that cost of the printers. Ideally we'll need a mobile one but at £200+ it's not on the priority list at the moment, so far we've just been emailing receipts via the app.

So far so good

I use the PayPal system and find emailing is fine for most customers. I was going to get a complete ipad based POS systme but the printers and stand come to over £400 so nope, thats not going to happen. the PayPal systme is great btw, I did try iZettle for a while but they hung on to my money for too long. I can get money in my bank in two hours with PayPal, plus I use Paypal on my website so its a bit more joined up which I like.

We used PayPal Here last year when we opened the shop. It was great and allowed access to the money very quickly. But as our receipts kept increasing it became obvious that a full sized card machine (with a contract) was a far cheaper option.

I'm think of going the PayPal rout, already have Worldpay, but as we are using PP on websites, might go with them for the shop as well, cut down on the overheads a bit

I finally got round to sorting out a card reader, I was about to get an iZettle but during a chance conversation with a friend, he recommended a company that seem to be considerably cheaper than most for a contract reader. The basic charge is £12.73 per month plus £4.99 for PCI compliance.

The thing that put me off the iZettle and Paypal devices is the lack of familiarity - my customers are generally older and less trusting of card payments anyway, so to whip out a funny little blue box and ask them to put their card and PIN in would probably be met with a bit of resistance. The upgraded iZettle device looks better, but it's still 80 quid up front. I'd also want a receipt printer (to reassure customers), so that would be another £100+ investment.

So, taking into account the higher rates on iZettle, over a 2 year period, it was likely to cost me around £45-50 per month (including initial investment and fees), compared to around £30 a month to have a proper counter-top terminal.

It's being delivered tomorrow, so I'll give an update once it's up and running.

£30.00 a month seems a lot, with WorldPay I'm paying £14.99 +VAT for the terminal, plus the normal transaction charges.

I decided not to use PayPay Here because I wanted to print receipts (got a lot of old customers ) , and the printers are £150.00 + VAT, and no guarantee of working on a Android device, and the printer supplier would not refund if the box has been opened .
I do have the PayPal Here keypad and have an account , but will only use it if we do any markets/ Craft fairs, and customers can have the receipt can be texted to them

The reader is £12.73 per month... The charges are 0.84% (debit card), 1.44% (credit) and 2.24% (business credit cards).

My £30 estimate was based on worst case scenario, ie everyone paying by credit card. So I expect my monthly expenses to be less... And significantly less than with an iZettle.

But for me, it's having that 'traditional' card reader on the counter that projects a far more professional image than a poxy little reader and an emailed receipt.

If the sums work for you then fair enough.
My customers don't have an issue using iZettle. They get handed a card reader and they put their card in. It then tells them the total and asks for their pin. Same as all other card readers, except it is smaller and wireless and I use my phone to put the total in, but that's the way everything is going nowadays anyway.
We normally have a wee chat about how fancy it is.
I don't have a printer for receipts. The few that don't have an email address but that want a receipt I just handwrite them one.

I run my PayPal here via the IPad. Very slick and efficient, the card reader is smaller than the traditional type and people remark how good it is. Ive never had a problem with anyone being reluctant, just the opposite, particularly as the new reader supports contact free payments. I also use the app for over the phone payments and transferring money into my bank. As I also use PayPal on the website so all transactions go through one PayPal account. all in all its a reasonable slick setup. Im also starting to use an app called Quicksale Pro for raising invoices for telephone orders, the custome pays over the phone like normal or I can send an electronic quote with an embedded PayPal button, the customer clicks and pays. Job done.

You've given me a bit of an idea there, the merchant services company charge higher fees on all transactions if you choose the option to take non-face-to-face payments.

It's literally once every blue moon that I need to take a card payment over the phone, so I declined this option. If ever I find myself in the situation where over-the-phone payments become more common, I could get a basic Paypal or iZettle system to take care of them...

iZettle needs card holder to be the there.