Business Concerns
As a “small business,” or anyone who’s ever seen me in person, I was an early adopter of taking credit cards for payment, and I was an early adopter of Square —
SquareUp.com
I have used a fairly wide variety of credit card processing tech, always looking for the simplest, easiest, most transparent and cost efficient way to handle billing. Recently, I’ve wanted to add in touch-less, as a nod towards current conditions.
As a short run, in between, there was an app called Flint, no card reader, just a software version that took a picture of the card, then, supposedly, interpreted the numbers (nascent CC OCR tech.)
Flint was, according to spurious web reports, running on too-thin a margin, got absorbed by Stripe, and that spun off Stripe Charge, but I’m totally unsure of lineage and accreditations. All I got is what’s left.
Stripe
Recently, I had a phone call, client was reciting the card number to me, and I jumped back into the Stripe app (now called “Charge”), just out of curiosity. Takes two or three days, but the deposits are automatic, and the company seems to take a half percent or so smaller fee. The percentage was pennies over the hundreds of dollars range.
Business Concerns
During the first part of volunteer shelter-in-place suggestion, I toyed with the buttons. There was a way to make a Stripe, or Stripe Charge button, and I liked the service because it was automatic — unlike my experience with either Square or PayPal.
I spent a portion of an afternoon wrestling code, buttons, and website testing, all for naught, at the end, I discerned what two pieces that mattered most, to me.
One, I wanted a seamless way to offer a single product, a streamlined way to charge for a service, without leaving the site. The giant is PayPal, and yes, I was an early adopter as that was the first gateway to offer a micro-payment, used for my original subscription set-up. As ubiquitous as it is, not everyone likes PayPal. Two: no need for me to trigger a deposit. Safe, secure, on-site, and no need for me to manually transfer monies.
Don’t leave the website, and automatic deposit. Plus simplicity. Is that really three?
Before the current troubles, and still under lock-down, I tried the Stripe option again. I had it set up for a spell with the subscription service, but oddly enough, it wasn’t the most popular — even though it was way simpler, and in my mind? Better from user/consumer point-of-view.
Business Concerns
As a consumer, in this example, as a web-based, media consumer, one site I subscribe to uses Stripe exclusively to handle the price of subscription, billing and so forth. Slick, clean, simple interface, i.e., intuitive user experience.
Since I started at the rock shop in Austin, I was looking for that happy middle ground. Cards or charts, I charge $20 for ten minutes. This is a Tuesday-only price, live at the rock shop. I can run long so I regularly charge twice that, billed in increments of ten minutes, rounded up. Plus tip.
Right before the pandemic and subsequent panic, I was in the process of raising my rates, and trying to simplify the whole process. What’s fun for me? What’s me at my best?
Most charted fishing trips are split into two categories, “half day,” up to four hours, and “whole day,” eight hours. My personal sweet spot for fishing is right at six hours on the water. I’m still energized, not too tired, enough time left over to clean the catch, and I enjoy the experience. More than a half, less than a whole.
Likewise, in a reading, I’m best between half hour and an hour. That is my sweet spot.
Took better part of weekend day, trying, cursing, reading the instructions over and over, and then, each server is a little different, getting the settings all adjusted out to the proper sequence? Was not easy, but eventually, on a second, more patient try, I managed to get the Stripe button to work the way I wanted it to work.
astrofish.net/shop
Unsure if it was the correct move, it started generating income almost immediately. Simple. Efficient. As one of my favorite sig files reads?
“A lot of work goes into making this look easy.”
astrofish.net/shop
Stripe
SquareUp.com
“Small business” being defined in terms of number of full-time employees, which, for most of this career? It’s been one. Just me. Part-time, freelance, and support? Comes and goes, and this works better if there is only one boss, nominally, me. “The buck stops here.”
- “U.S. president Harry S. Truman had a sign on his desk with ‘The buck stops here’ inscribed on it.”
In the early days, and for the sake of both transparency and legal mumbo-jumbo, I would have to take an impression of the card, then have a piece of paper with a cardholders signature attached. I started accepting credit cards near 30 years back, and at the time, I paid a hefty percentage, plus having to log into a virtual terminal to process the payment, and for record keeping, maintain that paper trail for three years. Or five years, I forget. Seven or ten years? One of this is IRS, and I don’t recall which. The last of the “paper” paperwork was shredded years ago. Cost, like over $20 a month for the service, and a credit card terminal, then a near 5% for transaction fees. I don’t miss it. Think that was through a Discover clearinghouse, and I didn’t take AMEX at the time.
The “$20 for ten minutes” on Tuesday, in Austin, is a special price. It only applies at that rock shop, and only on Tuesdays when I’m there. In recent months, I’ve done that exactly twice for clients, and it was a miserable failure.
- “So?”
So don’t even ask — not happening.