My wife’s working part time in a shop, run by a lady with little in the way of clue. They have no ability to take payments by card, and not even an electronic till. They have no IT whatsoever, so the plan is to buy a laptop or similar for the shop, but also something portable enough to take to shows at weekends.

Now – the Paypal reader looks good, but it only seems to work on Android or iOS. This would work well if they had a tablet for the weekend shows, but in the shop I think it would be a pain in the bum because they will need to use spreadsheets for staff rosters, inventory, emails, updating the website, handling pictures and whatnot.

So what they would really want is something just like the Paypal one that works with Windows. Anyone have experience of this?

some ideas here, probably

Don’t forget all the red tape involved with taking credit card payments. Especially wireless ones. https://www.pcisecuritystandards.org

As Zippykona says using a phone may reduce the PCI requirements.

My wife uses izettle of an iPad or iPhone.
Brilliant.
I know it’s not exactly what you want, but it’s so easy, portable, and can use an iPad just like a till..keeps all saddle records etc.

My 2p worth

DrP

Yeah but we don’t want to have to buy two iPads cis we really also need a laptop…

Just use spreadsheets on the iPad, then? Numbers is good, Google Sheets is too.

Rachel.

She’s hard up, so she’s not spending £400 on an iPad when there are £100 android tablets. But anyway, I don’t imagine taking and processing photos and editing webpages is much fun on a tablet..?

We use world pay zinc. Good for infrequent amounts.Android App + Bluetooth Card reader and online log in. Nice and simple, no monthly payment. Windows log in for customer not present transactions.

I think I could refer you for £10 off the initial setup fee if it happened. It’s a one-off fee basically to get the hardware.

2.75% for every transaction , you can get lower but you would pay a monthly subscription. There is nothing to pay here for 2.75% rate.

I haven’t come across a card system that runs on windows (not saying there isn’t one but I recently looked at a lot of epos systems and they are all geared up for tablets)

Izettle is great though if you do end up on a tablet. The android app is really good and very intuitive, enough features for most retailers I’d have thought.

The rates are reasonable and no contract. I would go for the £59 card reader but they do give you a free basic one when you sign up.

There are several other providers offering the same rates, they all pretty much do the same thing, not sure about their apps though.

Surely their business bank has offered such “merchant services”, I appreciate these may not be cheap

Had friends who ran a shop without an electronic till, card machine from the bank and handwritten receipts from a book

Most likely on a contract with a monthly fee. For smaller retailers likely to cost more I’d have thought.

The card machines themselves are usually better quality though. And yes you can use them manually, so no need for a fancy till, although that is one of the big advantages of the tablet based ones.
Depends what you’re selling I guess

Thanks folks. Sounds like two tablets and a laptop would work. Although the laptop could be Chrome based if the hardware was linked to the tablets.

Has anyone used the readers on budget tablets?

no, but i can’t imagine they would struggle.
It’s not graphic intense, and a very basic programme tbh.

you could trial teh izettle app before buying a card reader, and play around?

DrP

Surely their business bank has offered such “merchant services”, I appreciate these may not be cheap

They’re not. We did it for a bit – you pay for the terminal and the banking. So you have to clear about £30 a month. The payments are cheaper on the card of course. So may not suit small turnover.

Customer service was poor on our banking one too as two companies acting under one name of world pay deal with different elements. Shambles.

http://www.screwfix.com/p/payleven-chip-pin-card-reader/17506?_requestid=54223

But you may find the bank offers a deal for a POS terminal if you opt for a contactless one.

We use izettle on our phones – do they already have smart phones (android or ios) that they could use? can then use the laptop to login to the izettle webpage and export the transactions to spreadsheet of your choice.