Credit card readers for smartphones are taking off in the industry and we’ve covered the topic fairly extensively lately, including Ramon Ray’s coverage of PayPal Here. But with Eventbrite’s release of a new card reader for event organizers, ticket sales at the door using an iPad are now possible.
Here’s how it works. For $10, you get a card reader that plugs into your iPad’s power outlet. After downloading the Eventbrite app and setting up details of your event, you’re ready to start accepting credit cards. Once someone has presented a card for payment, you simply press “credit” on the iPad app and your card reader is activated. For payments over $25, your customer will be asked to sign using his or her finger on the touchscreen.
If you need to print transactions, Eventbrite has wireless printing capabilities to your Star printer, available through Eventbrite for just under $300. These printers can provide receipts to your customers on site, giving you full-service cashiering capabilities. For a limited time, Eventbrite is offering businesses no service charge credit card processing. The company charges a 3% credit card processing fee per transaction.
Mobile credit card capabilities are becoming a must for businesses-on-the-go. By outfitting sales executives and trade show presenters with the ability to accept payments using a smartphone or tablet, companies can make sales convenient for today’s cashless consumer and maximize profits.
“The biggest thing is the portability,” Bottle Docker C.O.O. Steve Chorazewitz told the New York Times of mobile card readers. The company uses mobile card readers to sell products at trade shows and festivals. These card readers are popping up at book signings, concerts, and even flea markets.
But Eventbrite is the first we could find that both works with an iPad and is targeted specifically toward accepting payments for events. This is important, according to Eventbrite’s Brent Bucci, because it gives event coordinators the ability to both see ticket sales data in real time, as well as have access to reports that track an event’s success.
“Since the card reader is designed with Events in mind, the app enables events coordinators to create and sell different tiered tickets, while tracking and gathering valuable customer data with every sale,” Bucci explains. “Multiple readers can be used in realtime with one account, so for large scale festivals or large corporate events, multiple readers can be deployed and synced with a singular Eventbrite account, and sales can be tracked in real time, which is pretty handy when seats are limited.”
While Ticketmaster seems to have cornered the market on convenient online ticket sales, the card reader allows smaller venues to administer ticket sales on site. By allowing event producers to sell tickets on site without carting around bulky equipment. Eventbrite allows small businesses to turn an iPad into a cash register, processing sales at the door to an event without forcing attendees to bring cash.
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