App Review: Square

Okay, getting back into the swing of writing this blog (how do you like the new theme?). Sorry I didn't post much for a while, between moving, getting used to living with another person again, selling events and life in general made this blog not a high priority. However now it's holiday preparation time so I'm going to be writing more. This includes this new App Review feature.

As I use new apps in my business I'll write reviews here about my experience. First up is one you may have already heard of: Square.

Square is a payment processing app that can be used on iphone, ipads, and most android devices as well. A little card reader plugs into the headphone jack that you can then swipe a credit or debit card with. The Square app lets you enter the amount of the payment (including sales tax if you have it set up for that) and processes the cardin seconds.

I've had the Square reader for a few months but I didn't have a chance to really give it a good run until late June when I had a booth at PortCon. It was a very busy event with a lot of people, many of them using cellphones and other devices that could affect reception (and did for phone calls). I was able to process payments for customers very quickly and I think the app must not use much bandwidth because I never had a problem with the reduced reception due to the number of people on the local cell network. At one point at the event the ATM in the hotel ran out of money so being able to take credit and debit cards made me sales when otherwise customers didn't have access to cash.

Pros:

• Card reader is mailed to you free after signing up.
• Fees are low, just 2.75%
• The app is compatible with most smart phones
• The app is pretty simple and straightforward to use
• Works in areas of low cellular reception (though obviously you need some reception or wifi available)
• Deposits are made very quickly
• Good stats available
• Business directory you can add your business to, though this is most useful if you have a B&M location that customers can visit.

Cons:

• You have to own a compatible smart phone or tablet which can be pricey.
• The card reader takes some practice. You'll want to use your own credit or debit card to practice swiping at home until you have it down (don't worry, you can swipe without charging the card). Don't go to your first selling event without practicing first.
• Some customers are wary of doing payment processing via your phone but as it becomes more common that seems to be fewer and fewer.
• The app can drain your battery so it's best to be in a place that has electricity available to recharge or invest in a portable power source for your phone and make sure it's fully charged.

Overall Rating: 5 out of 5. I honestly wouldn't consider doing a craft fair or other event now without one. If you prefer to keep all your payments with one service Paypal now has a similar service called Paypal Here which I have not used.

Easy DIY Jewelry Displays

I just updated my page on making jewelry displays for craft shows with instructions on making a plain cork bulletin board into a nice display board using fabric. The page also has instructions for display trays made with old picture frames, using fishbowls for a display, and ideas for re-purposing and recycling objects as displays.

Weekly Inspiration

Tropical Visions Bangle, originally uploaded by RenGalSA.

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Change is Good

Whenever an online selling venue makes a change, or Google updates it's algorithm, or Facebook changes the layout (again), there is a flood of "woe is me" posts from business owners. Sometimes it's the very changes to exact same business owners have been clamoring for but it's not exactly the way they pictured it working so they aren't happy and want it tossed out immediately and everything back the way it was.This immediate negative reaction to a new feature that has just been released (or has only been announced and not released yet) is counterproductive.

If you are doing this, stop it, right now.  This is plain and simple fear of chance because the new feature hasn't even been giving a fair test ride yet and is being dismissed.

Stop immediately looking for what is wrong with new features and start giving them a fair chance to work for you. Look for the opportunities just as hard, or harder, than you look for the faults.

What prompted this post is Facebook Timelines for Pages. When they were announced many people hated them for a number of reasons, the big one for businesses was that you could no longer have a custom landing page to welcome people who hadn't liked your page yet and encourage them to do so (often with a coupon, free video, etc.). However now a month since Timeline became available for Pages and a few days after it became universal for Pages we have this article from TechCrunch on the impact of Timeline. Here's the key points for Pages under 1 million Likes (that's most of us):

• Rate of new Likes was virtually the same (down by 0.04% which is statistically insignificant)
• People Talking About This numbers went up by 67.4% on average
• Comments per post went up by 40% on average
• Likes per Post went up by 60.3% on average

So while Timeline isn't getting pages Likes at a faster rate than before (or more importantly the rate hasn't gone down even with the loss of custom landing pages), your existing fans are interacting with your Page far more and that is incredibly important.

Sometimes new features do flop or negatively impact your business no matter what you do. When that happens it's terrible and you may feel at a loss for what to do and it makes you fear every new change. Fearing change though makes you less flexible and adaptable which becomes a cycle where every change, even those that might have helped you, are resisted until you either pull out of the cycle or your business fails. Even big companies that have been around for decades can succumb to this, look at Kodak which used to be the premier name in photography but is now in bankruptcy because it held on to film for so long that it was too far behind when it started making digital cameras to catch up.

Weekly Inspiration

pompod-123-copmetallic-1, originally uploaded by 11BOLDstreet.

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The Pychology of Free Shipping

Many handmade sellers are skeptical of free shipping, because free shipping isn't free for the seller. This attitude though ignores the psychological aspects of how you set your prices. Here are the two most common scenarios for free shipping:

Always Free - The seller offers free shipping all the time. In this scenario the seller has to build the cost of shipping into the price of the items.
Free as Sale - The seller occasionally offers free shipping as part of a sale or promotion. In this scenario the seller needs to have a high enough profit margin all the time to afford to run discounts*

However why offer free shipping when you still have to pay for it? For the same reason that a seller would offer 10% offer or run advertising: as a promotional tool. "Free" is a very powerful word and for online retailers an easy and affordable way to bring in extra business. In fact at least one consumer researcher has shown that shoppers will often pick free shipping over a discount even if the discount would save them more money.

For the time being I'm only offering free shipping as an occasional discount but with the prices for my raw materials and postage going up I'll soon have to revise my prices and I'm debating whether I should build the shipping costs into my prices. Regardless of what I decide in the end, free shipping will remain a valuable promotional tool for me and other online retailers.

* In my opinion this should be all sellers. If you don't have a high enough profit margin to be able to afford to discount either for a sale or for wholesale buyers then you don't have enough profit built in to adequately reinvest in the business and pay yourself a reasonable amount for your time.

Weekly Inspiration

button clutch :: interior, originally uploaded by Saídos da Concha.

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Weekly Inspiration

Christmas tree soap ornament set, originally uploaded by AquarianBath.

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Successfully Promoting a Sale

With Black Friday and Cyber Monday at hand here are my tips to running a successful sale. Feel free to reply with your own ideas.

ON ETSY OR OTHER SHOP
1. Edit your shop banner to announce the sale. This can be fancy or just adding a line of text in an eye catching color.
2. Also add text describing your sale to your shop announcement AND your Etsy profile
3. Edit your profile image to announce the sale as well.
4. Post in teams announcing your sale (make sure the team rules allow it first)
5. Add relevant tags for your sale, especially any official tags like "Black Friday Etsy"
6. Edit item titles to reflect the sale and put sale information at the very top of your item descriptions, I recommend edit express at craftopolis.com/ to make the process faster


OFF ETSY
1: Blog it, several times. I recommend once a few weeks out, again a week or 3-4 days prior, then finally on the day of the sale.
2: Post it on Facebook as an Event with all the details of the sale then share the event on your Facebook page. Again several time leading up to the sale.
3: Tweet the sale with a link to your shop, again several mentions prior to the sale and while your running the sale. Careful not to flood your feed with announcement tweets, every few hours is good.
4: If you have an email newsletter, send an email to your list announcing the sale
5: Post to deal sites like bigcrumbs.com
6: Run an ad on Google Adwords or Project Wonderful
7. Etsy on Sale automatically shares on their front page sales set up through the site.

Weekly Inspiration

110bch, originally uploaded by River Valley Design.

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