On Friday 3 rd of December, I joined friends and fellow jewellery artists, Leslie Perrino, Anne Patrick, Bill Haefling, Doug McDonald and Kearsley Stewart at the Evanston Homegrown Artists Holiday Bazaar, at The Evanston Ecology Center. It wasn’t a busy show, but it was great to spend time with everyone, and the customers we spoke to were all very friendly, and enthusiastic about the show. I hadn’t taken part in a show for more than a year, and it was a wonderful gentle re-introduction. Doug is missing from the first photo, as he was looking at something in the other room, when it was taken.
A few months ago Jeremy and I had decided to try using a credit card reader from Square. It is a small pod that you can plug into the headphone plug of an iPhone, iPod touch, or android devices. There are no startup or monthly charges, instead Square charge a small percentage for each transaction—ideal if you only do a few shows a year. We had tried a test transaction before, but this was the first time we had tried to use it in a show situation, so Jeremy came with me to make sure that everything worked OK.
Having the square, and being able to take credit cards meant that we had a few sales that we may not have otherwise had, it was worth having it with us. The Square app is simple to use—you just enter the amount and run the card through the reader. There is an option to take a photo, and add a short description for the receipt that we were able to use to include each artist’s names, on the receipt, which was great. The only problem that we had was getting a good signal for our internet connection as the Square app will not work without internet.
