Accepting credit / debit card payments for Honey.

[Dodge]

Hi all,

A lot of us sell our honey to friends and work colleagues. A lot of my work colleagues just don't carry cash any more and ask if I take card. I Sell a few hundred £'s worth of honey a year. Looking at say Sumup it's T&C's don't seem to mention that you require a business account etc to use the service.

Is this anyone else has investigated or do. 2% cost per transaction is acceptable and I already accept Bacs transfer from colleagues, actually the majority for my honey income is received by account transfer?

Dodge

 

[IndiBee]

Starling bank
https://www.starlingbank.com/business-account/

 

[Nige.Coll]

Most are about the same
Sumup. izettle square.
The percentage is roughly the same and no contracts.
They do need to link to a phone though, stand-alone units can be bought for more money.
There will be some paperwork to fill out and they may require a picture of a passport etc.
I don't think you will need a business account as they are going for the people making money from hobbies during lockdown.

 

[B+.]

Have you considered PayPal?
If it's just an occasional honey sale to friends/work-mates this would probably suit you as there are no transaction fees between friends.
You link it to a bank account/card but you can hold credit balances in your Paypal account itself. Then, when the sales come round, you have the money available to buy that latest "must have" item.

 

[Dodge]

Have you considered PayPal?
If it's just an occasional honey sale to friends/work-mates this would probably suit you as there are no transaction fees between friends.
You link it to a bank account/card but you can hold credit balances in your Paypal account itself. Then, when the sales come round, you have the money available to buy that latest "must have" item.

It's the machine to tap a contact less card which is what I am after for convenience.

 

[Swn58]

Have you considered PayPal?
If it's just an occasional honey sale to friends/work-mates this would probably suit you as there are no transaction fees between friends.
You link it to a bank account/card but you can hold credit balances in your Paypal account itself. Then, when the sales come round, you have the money available to buy that latest "must have" item.

All very well until they decide to hold your money back, based on a third party telling PP that you have not pleased them in some way!

 

[ics19]

We've got the iZettle or Zettle as they're now known. fees are cheaper than PayPal even though PayPal now own them. The reader takes cards, contactless and phone payments (Google pay etc). You can pre configure your own products in the app or just take custom payment amounts each time. You can also take/record cash payments so you have all honey sales accounted for in one place for Mr tax man. nice reporting features for each month etc. Downside is cost of device at £30 but sometimes on offer from various sellers. You do not need a business account. You'd need to factor in device cost/fees against your takings, but very handy for markets

 

[B+.]

All very well until they decide to hold your money back, based on a third party telling PP that you have not pleased them in some way!

I've never had any problems with PayPal. I use it all the time.

 

[Erichalfbee]

All very well until they decide to hold your money back, based on a third party telling PP that you have not pleased them in some way!

Friends and family is the way to do it. No fee instant payment. If they have an account and a mobile phone you can do it on the doorstep

 

[pargyle]

Friends and family is the way to do it. No fee instant payment. If they have an account and a mobile phone you can do it on the doorstep

I must admit (whilst I currently use paypal and bank transfer) I've found that new customers that have come along since Covid have asked me if I take cards and for what IZettle costs I've been seriously considering going down this route .. I sell a lot of honey at work and again people have their debit cards with them and it would be so much easier than messing about with cash or paypal.

I sell a few other things as well which are, at times, a lot more expensive than my honey and at the events I occasionally attend it would be useful to take a card payment. Impulse buys and multiple purchases are often easier if you can take the payment instantly with the tap of a card.

I'm going to have another look ... Izettle seemed the best option when I last had a look around ...

 

[ics19]

There's an offer here for the zettle reader for £19+vat:

2021 Zettle Review: UK Card Reader Fees & Pricing Compared

It says before end of May, but click through and the Zettle page where you purchase says end of June, so a few days left

We've only got the reader. There's a fancy stand for more bucks if you do more table sales etc. Only downside is cost of a printer to give receipts if you get serious - the zettle only works with their dedicated printer which is pricey. As a fall-back you can provide an automatic email receipt for a sale if you enter a customers email address.

Forgot to add previously you can configure products as having no VAT (eg honey), or with VAT for candle sales etc if you happen to be VAT registered, so the reports then can show the correct figures.

 

[Dodge]

Many thanks for the help. It will certainly make it easier even with only a very modest number of sales at work to use a card reader and it is viable. No one carries cash these day's not even city centre locations. The colleagues that carry cash all say its for emergencies only and do I take card.

 

[Angry_Mob]

A local strawberry farm has an honesty box at the entrance; in it they have a sumup card reader which I have been meaning to look into for my own use as my honesty box ends up full of coppers and other small change.

Looking at the website it appears the one they have is £149 to buy and has a 1.69% transaction fee.

 

[Rachelw3]

Hi all,

A lot of us sell our honey to friends and work colleagues. A lot of my work colleagues just don't carry cash any more and ask if I take card. I Sell a few hundred £'s worth of honey a year. Looking at say Sumup it's T&C's don't seem to mention that you require a business account etc to use the service.

Is this anyone else has investigated or do. 2% cost per transaction is acceptable and I already accept Bacs transfer from colleagues, actually the majority for my honey income is received by account transfer?

Dodge

I use sum up on a daily basis for my business (not bee related) and I don’t have a business account. They are fab always paid into my bank account within two days.

 

[Rachelw3]

A local strawberry farm has an honesty box at the entrance; in it they have a sumup card reader which I have been meaning to look into for my own use as my honesty box ends up full of coppers and other small change.

Looking at the website it appears the one they have is £149 to buy and has a 1.69% transaction fee.

You could buy

 

[pargyle]

There's an offer here for the zettle reader for £19+vat:

2021 Zettle Review: UK Card Reader Fees & Pricing Compared

It says before end of May, but click through and the Zettle page where you purchase says end of June, so a few days left

We've only got the reader. There's a fancy stand for more bucks if you do more table sales etc. Only downside is cost of a printer to give receipts if you get serious - the zettle only works with their dedicated printer which is pricey. As a fall-back you can provide an automatic email receipt for a sale if you enter a customers email address.

Forgot to add previously you can configure products as having no VAT (eg honey), or with VAT for candle sales etc if you happen to be VAT registered, so the reports then can show the correct figures.

By the time you get to the purchase page it works out at £34.50 for the reader including postage - I think the price seems to relate to the size of the business you put in - either way at £34.50 it's not bad deal for the convenience of doing away with cash and paypal and I've ordered one ... very simple process - no need for an actual business - you can set it to any bank account you choose and chnage the 'business' name if you wish in settings. Looks like it's a good set up .... and 1.75% transaction fee is not going to break the bank.

 

[Swn58]

I've never had any problems with PayPal. I use it all the time.

I'll keep my 'wittering' as short as possible. I sold an item on Ebay. The customer sent the money and I had the item packaged and ready to go. I then got a message from Ebay saying that they had intercepted the payment, by not allowing PayPal to let me have the money until I sent the item. Apparently, after many years of trading, I could not be trusted to send an item I'd been paid for! Initially I thought I was the victim of a scam, but incredibly, it was not. Eventually, the customer paid me again, privately by BACS.
I posted the parcel, then closed my PayPal and Ebay accounts. Ebay then harassed me for nearly a year for a transaction payment of £3.90.
A friend of mine, a while back, sold a car using PayPal as the payment method. They froze the money for many months, citing that they suspected money-laundering.
My conclusion: PayPal have unhealthy relationships with some of their major clients. They then play 'God' by deciding whether money people have legally been paid actually can be accessed by them. I would not take the risk of a payment for honey of maybe thousands of pounds being held up!

 

[B+.]

I'll keep my 'wittering' as short as possible. I sold an item on Ebay. The customer sent the money and I had the item packaged and ready to go. I then got a message from Ebay saying that they had intercepted the payment, by not allowing PayPal to let me have the money until I sent the item. Apparently, after many years of trading, I could not be trusted to send an item I'd been paid for! Initially I thought I was the victim of a scam, but incredibly, it was not. Eventually, the customer paid me again, privately by BACS.
I posted the parcel, then closed my PayPal and Ebay accounts. Ebay then harassed me for nearly a year for a transaction payment of £3.90.
A friend of mine, a while back, sold a car using PayPal as the payment method. They froze the money for many months, citing that they suspected money-laundering.
My conclusion: PayPal have unhealthy relationships with some of their major clients. They then play 'God' by deciding whether money people have legally been paid actually can be accessed by them. I would not take the risk of a payment for honey of maybe thousands of pounds being held up!

Interesting.
I would probably adopt the same attitude as you if anything like that happened to me. I have never had a problem with them though - even though I use PayPal a lot.

 

[ericbeaumont]

It's the machine to tap a contact less card which is what I am after for convenience.

Go for it; I use a Zettle at market but also at the front door and anywhere in-between (bumble nest removal, swarm collection).

Two things to bear in mind: wait until Done! shows on the screen before letting the customer go. There's a slight delay until that point and you may be tempted to move to the next customer before payment confirmation appears; occasionally it's declined.

Secondly, don't drop it: the reader has sensitive security and if it suspects forced entry it switches off and cannot be reset. Happened once and I had to buy another; Zettle gave me a 50% discount.

 

[Pembroke]

There's an offer here for the zettle reader for £19+vat:

2021 Zettle Review: UK Card Reader Fees & Pricing Compared

It says before end of May, but click through and the Zettle page where you purchase says end of June, so a few days left

We've only got the reader. There's a fancy stand for more bucks if you do more table sales etc. Only downside is cost of a printer to give receipts if you get serious - the zettle only works with their dedicated printer which is pricey. As a fall-back you can provide an automatic email receipt for a sale if you enter a customers email address.

Forgot to add previously you can configure products as having no VAT (eg honey), or with VAT for candle sales etc if you happen to be VAT registered, so the reports then can show the correct figures.

If the printer setup is anything like the one that's attached to the old Paypal Here card reader system, there was a way round it. The printers used are thermal ones and you can buy these from china traders cheaply on EBay, it needs a blue tooth connection, you then have to configure them in a special way to work. I seem to recall the way to do it with the Paypal system was detailed in the business sellers forum on Paypal but there's sure to be a way of doing it for Zettle published somewhere on the net.

Here's the thread on Paypal that detailed what to do:

https://www.paypal-community.com/t5/Disputes-and-Limitations/Cheap-printer-setup/m-p/1614838#M35444
and here is an example of the type of printer: Portable Wireless 58mm Bluetooth Thermal Printer Receipt Printing ForAndroid iOS 8852089603175 | eBay