What to Know Before Getting Started
Starting a New Business?
Selecting a credit card processor is often more complicated than most people expect. How much should you be paying in fees? Should you lease or buy equipment? Should you be locked into a service agreement for anything length of time? These considerations and several others are imporant to understand before signing up with any merchant account provider. Mistakes are easily made and can be very costly to your business. Along with seeing our top choices for payment services below, be sure to checkout this post to avoid common traps in the merchant services industry.
Considerations For Current Business Owners
Changing merchant accounts can be an expensive, complicated, and time consuming process. Are you really going to save as much as promised? Do you need to buy to new equipment or sign new lease agreements? Will there be other less accountable costs such as those associated with employee retraining? Before selecting one of our choices below, you may want to consider renegotiating your fees with your current payment processing vendors using the help of a contingency-compensated consultant. It can result in a dramatic decrease in costs without the pains of switching. In some cases business owner have also obtained substantial refunds of prior overcharges along with saving thousands in future processing costs. See this post to learn more about this little-known alternative to changing merchant account provider.
As a flea market vendor, you don’t want to be unable to make a sale just because a customer has no cash on hand. Accepting credit cards has never been easier, and you can actually improve some of your day-to-day operations through common features like accounting integration, online store integration, and gift and loyalty programs. Generally speaking, the most cost-effective merchant account solution for flea market and swap meet vendors will be a mobile credit card processing app or tablet-based point-of-sale system, but larger businesses that occasionally sell at flea markets might be well-served by a traditional merchant services company with online, in-store, and mobile options.
To help you find the right fit for your business, we’ve put together the following list of the best merchant accounts for flea market vendors. The providers on this list offer online marketing tools, mobile apps, accounting software integration, and other useful services for operating your flea market booth. They are also known to provide low-commitment contracts with transparent pricing and quality customer service. To find the right provider for your flea market location, be sure to research each processor’s products and features and compare pricing and terms.
Our unbiased articles are supported in part by helping you find highly reviewed merchant accounts. You can learn more here.
Why These Merchant Account Providers
Host Merchant Services
Host Merchant Services is a Newark, Delaware-based merchant account provider that is well-suited for full-time and part-time flea market sellers. Host’s products and services include point-of-sale solutions for contractors, online marketing tools, an online payment gateway and virtual terminal, mobile credit card processing, and merchant cash advance. Host Merchant Services specializes in e-commerce businesses and provides a free website and business-class email address to interested new merchants. For this reason, Host is an especially good choice for crafts vendors who would like to maintain a strong web presence.
Host Merchant Services has received only positive feedback on public forums, with most reviewers singling out the company’s customer service for praise. Host offers interchange-plus pricing with no early termination fees to all of its merchants, meaning that users will enjoy the most transparent pricing model available and can cancel service without penalty. The Better Business Bureau gives Host an “A+” rating, and CPO also gives the company an “A+.”
For more information, visit the Host Merchant Services website or call (888) 727-4538.
PaymentCloud
Based in Woodland Hills, California, PaymentCloud is a merchant account provider that specializes in serving standard to high risk business types. The company’s products and services include point-of-sale solutions, mobile phone swipers, an online payment gateway and virtual terminal, EMV-compatible terminals, and merchant cash advances. PaymentCloud provides merchants with a range of POS and credit card terminal options perfect for flea market vendors. Whether you’re processing with a wireless terminal or a simple mobile swiper compatible with any Apple or Android device, you can process payments by swiping, tapping or keying in cards on-site at any flea market.
PaymentCloud provides a dedicated account rep to all new merchants for the life of the account. The company has not received any negative complaints on consumer forums, and it customizes its pricing according to each merchant’s business type and processing history. The BBB does not maintain a profile for PaymentCloud at this time, but CPO gives the company an “A.”
For more information, visit the PaymentCloud website or call (888) 506-7859.
Fattmerchant
Active since early 2014, Fattmerchant is a merchant account provider leading the industry’s move toward flat-rate, subscription-style pricing. The company’s products and services include EMV-compatible countertop terminals, a virtual terminal, an online payment gateway, an online shopping cart, mobile phone processing, QuickBooks integration, online invoicing, and recurring billing. Fattmerchant is capable of serving all standard-risk flea market sellers and offers a comprehensive dashboard for tracking all payments and customers.
Fattmerchant offers multiple pricing plans with different rates. Merchants can select either a plan that charges a flat fee on all transactions or a plan that charges a fixed monthly fee plus a fixed per-transaction dollar amount above interchange. In other words, merchants can choose whether or not they are charged a percentage markup on each transaction. Fattmerchant currently has an “A” rating on CPO and an “A+” rating with the Better Business Bureau.
For more information, visit the Fattmerchant website, or call (866) 397-9826.
Our unbiased articles are supported in part by helping you find highly reviewed merchant accounts. You can learn more here.
Why These Merchant Account Providers
Helcim
NXGEN Canada
Other Merchant Account Options
The providers in this section may not have been researched as thoroughly or may lack a quality that prevented them from being listed above. We have listed them here to provide a broader view of potential merchant account options. Are you a decision maker with your company and believe that you should be listed below? Tell us here.
Shopify
Headquartered in Ottawa, Ontario, Shopify is a well-established online store provider that also offers in-person payment processing solutions for flea market sellers. In addition to an endlessly customizable online store experience, Shopify offers chargeback recovery, QuickBooks integration, email marketing, rewards programs, and an iPad-based point-of-sale application that merchants can use to accept payments in-person. Shopify is an excellent option for business who would like robust online store customization in addition to a tablet-based point-of-sale system for flea market sales.
Shopify offers month-to-month pricing plans with variable pricing and product tiers. The company provides phone, email, and live chat support to all of its merchant tiers and enjoys very few online complaints despite its massive user base. The Better Business Bureau gives Shopify an “A+” rating at this time, while CardPaymentOptions.com awards the company an “A.”
For more information, see the Shopify website.
Spark Pay
Launched in April 2013, Spark Pay by Capital One is a mobile processing app offered as part of Capital One’s “Spark Business” suite of small business solutions. It can be acquired via a free download from the App Store or Google Play Store and comes with a free headphone jack card reader. Spark Pay also comes with live phone support and email support for all users. Spark Pay is a great option for flea market vendors who want to accept credit cards without any dedicated hardware or unnecessary costs.
Spark Pay offers two pricing plans for merchants. The first, the Go Plan, is intended for low-volume merchants who simply wish to accept credit cards via their mobile devices. It charges 2.7% per swiped transaction, 2.95% per swiped American Express transaction, and 3.7% per keyed-in transaction. There are no other monthly fees associated with this plan.The Pro Plan, which is intended for higher-volume merchants, charges 1.95% per swiped transaction, 2.95% per swiped American Express transaction, and 2.95% per keyed-in transaction. It includes a monthly fee of $9.95 and can be cancelled anytime without penalty.
You can learn more by visiting the Spark Pay website.
ShopKeep
ShopKeep is a POS system provider based in New York City. ShopKeep’s useful features include inventory management, layout customization, labor tracking, customizable receipts, customer profiling, real-time analytics, a mobile dashboard app for live sales tracking, and a barcode scanner. ShopKeep is a good option for flea market booths that have highly active points of sale.
ShopKeep costs $49 per month per register, but it allows you to choose the credit card processor you would like to use or keep your current processor. This provider-agnostic flexibility is ideal for merchants who are looking to keep costs to a minimum. Our review of ShopKeep awards the company an “A” rating, while the BBB is awarding the company an “A+” rating at this time.
For more information, see the ShopKeep Website.
Payline Data
Headquartered in Chicago, Illinois, Payline Data has consistently rated as one of the best all-around merchant account providers on CPO since we first reviewed the company. Payline is capable of serving flea market vendors of all sizes and specialties. The company offers traditional retail credit card terminals, mobile phone credit card processing (via Flint), an online payment gateway and virtual terminal, QuickBooks integration, and API integration for website payments. Payline Data is a great option for almost any size of business, from small crafts sellers to large businesses that occasionally rent flea market booths.
In addition to its wide array of services, Payline Data offers interchange-plus pricing with month-to-month contracts and no early termination fees. As a result, the company enjoys a large number of positive testimonials from its clients on this website and in other consumer protection forums. The Better Business Bureau currently assigns Payline Data an “A+” rating, and CPO also gives Payline an “A+.”
For more information, see the Payline Data website or call (888) 506-7812.
If your business offers merchant services for flea market vendors, please leave a comment in the comment section below or contact us through our contact page in order to get listed in this article.
About Phillip Parker
Thank you for reading my review. I hope that it has helped you with your research.
Why I'm Qualified to Write About Credit Card Processing and Merchant Account Services
I'm a former credit card processing sales director who left the industry because I didn't like how it takes advantage of small business owners. It feeds like a leech on businesses and thrives by imposing fees that are nearly impossible to comprehend. Seeing a need for change, I left and built this website help business owners better understand the industry, research merchant services providers, and get refunds of excessive merchant account fees. My experience of working "behind the curtain" in the industry, and using that knowledge for good, has resulted in millions of dollars returned to hard-working small business owners as well as enterprise-level companies.
From the time that I starting working in the merchant services industry to when I left to create this website, I've been on the pulse of payments for nearly 15 years. It didn't seem fair to keep this "insider" knowledge to myself. To lift the fog, I've reviewed hundreds of companies, read thousands of user reviews, and learned the pricing tricks of every provider. If you have questions about credit card processing, you can find the answers on this website.