How To Accept Credit Cards At Garage Sale?

If you’re one of the many homeowners who regularly holds garage sales, you may be looking for ways to accept credit cards from your customers. This can be a great way to make your sales more convenient for your customers and increase your profits. We’ll explore some of the best ways to accept credit cards at your garage sale.

How to Accept Credit Cards at a Garage Sale

Credit cards make holding a garage sale – and shopping at one – much easier. Not only are mobile payment options like credit cards more sanitary, but they’re also more convenient. Customers can fund their mobile wallets or use a credit card directly to shop just about everywhere – so why not at your garage sale?

Contactless payments like credit card payments and Venmo make it easier than ever for customers to pay yuo. Not only that, but “mobile commerce” is also more environmentally friendly and convenient. 

When you offer credit card or touchless payment options, you can make more money. You’ll increase the number of items you sell and may even fetch higher prices, too. 

Here’s a quick video to explain more about how to accept credit cards at a garage sale, if you’re not interested in a full read:

How Do You Charge Someone With a Credit Card: Tips for Accepting a Credit Card 

First, remember that any fees related to the credit card transaction aren’t going to be charged to the customer – they will be charged to you. Therefore, it’s important to consider all of your options if you’re planning on accepting credit cards.

In some cases, it may make more sense for you to accept Venmo payments instead of credit cards – that way, you won’t be charged any fees.

Credit cards do still offer the best protection against fraud. Your customers are protected from losses over $50 and most payment processing companies (including Square, which we’ll discuss in more detail below) have features to help keep your information safe, too.

It can be advantageous to you, as the seller, to accept payments from a mobile wallet. These require the customer to deposit funds from your bank account to your e-wallet.

Then, you can accept payments with services like Square with zero transaction fees. You may be able to incentivize your customers to use this option by offering them lower prices on the products you’re selling! 

Can an Individual Accept Credit Card Payments?

Any business or individual can accept credit card payments – however, you’ll need a method of processing payments. A payment processor does the job of reviewing and processing customers’ card and account details so that the payment to you can be authorized.

If you want to accept credit card payments, you can do so in two ways – with a payment service provider or a merchant account.

A merchant account is one that you open with a bank to accept credit card payments, while a payment service provider is one that lets you accept credit card payments without this kind of account (the preferred method for people who don’t actually own businesses and are just holding yard sales occasionally).

Some common payment service providers include:a

• Stripe
• Apple Pay
• PayPal
• Square 

Of these, Square is one of the most common for yard sale vendors, since it’s easy to add to your phone quickly. 

Can You Use Square for a Garage Sale?

Square is a common option for sending and receiving payments at a garage sale. Square does charge fees – it’s a 2.6% plus 10 cent fee for every transaction with a swiped card and a 3.5% plus 15 cent fee for manually keyed-in payments. These are charged to you, the merchant, and not the customer. 

Square is incredibly simple to use. You can hook it up to your smartphone or tablet and accept Mastercard, Visa, Discover, or American Express payments.

When you sign up for an account, you’ll receive a free Square magstripe reader. You’ll get your funds the very same day, in some cases! 

Still curious about everything that Square has to offer your business? Check out this video for more details on how to use Square as a method of accepting credit card payments at your next yard sale:

PayPal for Yard Sales

PayPal is another option for your next garage sale. If someone isn’t comfortable with giving you their credit card to swipe, PayPal will let you still accept credit card payments without the information being revealed to you, the seller.

You’ll have to create an invoice for the products you are selling, then send the customer an invoice. Alternatively, you can provide the customer with your PayPal email and let them know how much to send to you.

A word to the wise? If you’re using PayPal or any other money transferring apps (like Venmo) double and triple-check that the money is in your account before the customer leaves with the item they’ve purchased. Otherwise, you have no way of getting the money back to you.

Other Payment Options for a Garage Sale

Not into taking credit cards? Don’t sweat it. Here are a few more payment options for your garage sale. 

Cash

Ah, cash. There’s nothing quite like cold, hard cash – and nothing quite as reliable, either. Make sure you have plenty of coins and small bills on hand to make change for folks who want to pay in cash. 

Should You Venmo for Garage Sale?

Venmo is another way you can accept payments at a garage sale. However, keep in mind that both parties have to have Venmo accounts.

If the customer is trying to pay their Venmo payment by credit card, they’ll be charged an additional 3% fee. Otherwise, Venmo transactions are free. 

Other Touchless Payment Options

Square, Venmo, and regular credit card payments are the most common touchless payment options you can consider for your yard sale. However, there are plenty of others to choose from, too, including:

• WildApricot Payments
• Authorize.net
• Zelle
• Google Pay and Samsung Pay (similar to Apple Pay but for Google and Samsung users)
• Dwolla
• Due 

…and more. 

Credit Card Sales at a Garage Sale: It Can Be Done!

It can be a little daunting to take credit cards at a garage sale, but it doesn’t have to be. With the right tools and a little bit of know-how, you can easily start accepting plastic for your products.