Changes at Embar Pottery

No I haven't gone away, I have just been busy! and the potter is on holiday and hasn't been reminding me (hassling) to get the blog done!
The last month has seen some major debating going on in the Embar Pottery camp, which has finally emerged as a decision, and it has been about credit card machines.

As anyone who has seen us out at a show knows we have a portable credit/debit card machine which allows us to take card payments for things when we are in the middle of a field.
It looks a bit like this....


However we have to pay a (high) monthly charge for the privilege of having this machine, as well as a per transaction charge,  which makes its worthiness a little debatable. The months when we do a lot of fairs (May - Aug) it pays its way absolutely fine. Its the months when we don't even switch it on (Jan/feb etc) but we still have to pay the monthly charge that the debate starts.

A number of different companies have started to produce a new style machine which has no monthly charge just the per transaction charge. This seems perfect for businesses like Embar Pottery where some months we will use it a lot and others not so much. There is however some downsides to this (hence the debate).
1) They look nothing like a traditional portable card machine so will customers be happy to use it?

2) They link up via an app on your mobile and then use your mobile data to connect up (the customers card details are not stored on your phone tho, its all encrypted by the machine)
The problem with this is that if you get no signal in the field you can't use it.
The traditional card machine has a roaming sim card so connects to whichever network it can find.
The other problem is if you have a smartphoneophobe in your midst who is worried about using a smartphone!
3) The per transaction charge is higher than the traditional machine

So after much debating where for a while the only decision we could make was that we definitely needed to have the ability to accept card payments we have taken the plunge.
We have cancelled the contract on our old machine and the new one has arrived. So bear with us if you see us out at any of our November shows. Its new, It will take some getting used to!
Our locations for November shows are now on the website so check it out http://www.embarpottery.co.uk/aboutus.html