If you run a business where you are one of many vendors at an event, you may have had this experience before.
Someone comes up to your booth at the festival or flea market and starts to fall in love with some of your items. You tell them the price and they count the cash they have with them. They then look uneasy and tell you they only have so much cash and don’t know what else they may need to buy, so they’ll come back. Rarely do they return. Often something else grabbed their attention and their money is gone.
Another option is that the customer has picked up a number of your items and starts to bring them to you with a credit card in hand. When you tell them you can’t accept credit cards, they put most of the items away and just keep one or two that they can afford with the cash they have left.
You may have lost hundreds of dollars on these two scenarios. Instead, you need to look into giving your business a way of taking credit cards. While many think that getting a credit card processing program in place for their business has to be expensive, it is not always and can pay for itself many times over.
On the other side of things is your business credit card. Businesses should always have a credit card and good line of credit. You never know when you need it.
If your business sees you traveling a lot to craft shows or art shows, you want to have a line of credit just in case you need it. What would you do if you were on your way to a big show Saturday morning and the vehicle breaks down? You have to pay for a way to get it towed or fixed and get to the venue, right? The money you have on hand is meant to be change, so you can make sales. If you use it, the banks are closed and you may well be out of luck when it comes time to make change.
But if you had a business credit card this would not be a problem. Instead you would be able to charge any repair or other unexpected cost that you need and then know that at the end of the month, it will show up on your statement and even make your bookkeeping go a little easier