Accepting payments from customers

A question I get every so often is about what types of payment you should accept when your selling jewelry or any product. Well, it definitely depends on exactly what your selling and where your selling it but here a couple of rules to go by when deciding what types of payment you want to accept:

- Cash is always great when your selling something in person. Cash is not good when someone wants to give it to you at a later date. Don't accept IOUs ever. Even from your friends, unless you want to potentially ruin your friendship. If you are selling items that cost under $20, sometimes it's just worth it to ask for cash if doing the credit card transaction is going to be a headache and takes you longer than it is worth to do.

- Paypal is a great way to accept payments online. www.paypal.com  If you are selling something online, paypal will notify you through email that your payment has gone through and once it has gone through, you can give the product to the buyer. You can do this with someone in person as well as over the phone or through email. Don't forget that paypal takes about 3% of your sale, although it may be worth it especially dealing with someone you don't know online.

- Square is great for accepting payments through iPhone, iPad and Android. https://squareup.com/ When you sign up, they will send you a little square swipe reader to use. When using the swipe reader, they take 2.75% of your payment, which isn't bad. You can also enter someones credit card number without the reader if you forget it or if someone is making a purchase over the phone, but then Square takes 3.5% and 15 cents per transaction, so using the swipe reader is a better deal, but again, either way, it's better to make the sale and pay a percentage than it is to miss out on the sale all together.

- Checks are something you should ONLY accept from someone you know well or someone you work with on a continuous basis. If you are selling something at a trade show like jewelry or any items, it's best NOT to accept checks from strangers. Most people won't even ask anymore because hardly any businesses will accept this type pf payment in that situation, but if they do ask, it's best to already know your answer, which should be NO. Checks can bounce without being able to get in contact with that person again. Only in cases where you see the person on a regular basis or when you're dealing with selling something to a reputable business, is it ok to accept checks. And even still, you have to be careful and keep track of what payments are owed to you.