We did this a few years ago, and it wasn't really a big deal, but you do need to be aware of all the fees and issues associated with accepting credit cards.
We set up our merchant account through a school dad who has a business doing this. You can probably find someone in the local yellow pages or even online.
We rented the processing equipment (he waived our fees)for the night of the auction and a few days after. Our biggest nightmare was trying to use the electronic terminal at cash-out. Remember that every purchase requires a telephone call from the terminal to the cc company. At our auction, we only had one phone line, and painfully slow response time. After trying to cash out the first guest or two, we immediately abandoned the electronic terminal and went to manually sliding the credit card through the old style carbon imprinter. The next day our cash-out chair had to individually key each transaction into the electronic terminal so she could then upload the transactions. We paid a higher per transaction fee because we had to do this manually. I was unhappy with the rep who should have advised us about this issue.
We had to keep a keen eye out - our rep set us up with AmEx in addition to MC and Visa, even though we specifically asked only for the two. Not a big deal except that Amex charges a minimum service fee even if you don't use the account. We had to call a couple of times to deactivate the account and get our $5 back.
We definately made more money that year because of the credit cards. If you have a volunteer who is willing to set this up and keep an eye out for the potential pitfalls, it can be worthwhile.
Below is the list of fees we found when we researched this. Not every merchant account set up company is going to charge every fee - that's their competitive edge and your negotiating chit.
Typical Examples
One-Time Set Up Fee $0-$100
Monthly Statement Fee $10
Visa/MC Discount Rate on $100 Transaction 1.59% - 2.50% (Discount Rate is term for the fee charged on each transaction. It is a percent of the transaction value and will vary based on other factors such as electronic vs. manual upload)
Visa per transaction fee $.05 - $.30
MC per transaction fee $.10 - $.30
ACH Daily Batch Deposit Fee $.0 - $.20
Monthly Minimum Fee $0 - $15 +
Equipment Rental Fee $14 and up
Equipment Purchase $300 and up
You may want to look at the website for a company called Auctionpay, Inc. I have not used their services for our auction, but we were looking into it and it seems interesting. I'm not sure what it would cost...
We've been having this debate at our school. Our auction chair wants to be able to take credit cards but our school Business Manager looked into it and said the equipement and software to set it up is like $750 plus $25 a month plus other % and per fee transactions. Then, on top of that, the Business Manager wants to charge the 2.5% ON TOP of the purchase to recoup the fees. Hmmm...I'm not thinking it sounds too expensive. If you find out anything different, post it here! Thanks
shelly
Just a quick question. Does anyone have any easy idea to set up a merchant account for a silent auction, so we would be able to accept credit cards. We have several large items that we think will bring more money if we have the option of the the winner of the auction beinig able to pay with their credit card. However to buy a credit card machine is costly.
