24Jul Accepting credit cards when you’re selling your stuff.
One of the major ways we raise funding for some of our independent film projects is to travel around to film festivals and conventions selling our feature length films. Each event gets our movies out in front of people who might never have heard of them and sales help fund future projects. We’ve done this enough times that we now have a list of the good and bad festivals across the mid-west.
In the past many of these events have been cash only, but over the last few years less and less people carry cash with them. Or worse, the ATM at the event will run out of cash. At first we solved this problem by using square, which at the time was an iphone only device. The cost per transaction is 2.75% so you loose about 27 cents on every $10 transaction. But recently Paypal announced a clone version of square called Paypal here.
After looking into it I found that the Paypal here program is 2.7% compared to 2.75% for square. That .05% isn’t much savings but it was enough that I’ve decided to give it a try. The first test we’ll be coming up next weekend at OSfest in Omaha. I’ll be running a booth with our writer and director as well as a few actors from our current project. If you’re in the area feel free to stop by the booth or join us for drinks at the after hours party. As usual, it should be a good time.
July 24th, 2012 at 7:21 pm
If you ever make it to the festivals around the Minnesota area, keep me updated!
July 24th, 2012 at 8:58 pm
I will be interested in your findings. I am a Square customer that really never used it, but think having PayPal account with a Paypal system would keep everything nicely together.
July 25th, 2012 at 12:22 am
Thanks for that post DeeJay, it’s the answer for musicians and photographers who sell stuff in the field.
August 6th, 2012 at 9:42 pm
Do this paypal or square card swiper accessory works with the Nexus 7? I’ve posted about my intent to use the Nexus 7 like in your latest review of DSLRcontroller app on XDA and they brought up a point that the Nexus 7 may not have a dedicated mic input in the headphone jack. This may interferes with the accessory. I know that internet access is required and the Nexus 7 don’t have cell data but my university have campus wide wifi that I can use (and I can use my atrix 4G otherwise)
Anyway, thought you might like to check this out. Thank you.