Card reader for small business reccomenedations

[StuckInTheMiddleOfNowhere]

Just that really.
Best one for fees?
A lot of people use Sumup is that a good one?
Or better off going with lloyds cardnet?

What's good for ease of use. Transferring funds to the business account

Square sum up and izettle are all very comparable. Around 1.7% commission.

It depends how much your turnover is, but I’ve found that a ‘proper’ traditional card machine (with money terminal rental) are much better 0.25% but you have the money rental to factor in (around £15-£30)

Turnover approx 1800 a week.
So maybe the lloyds type one?

We use square. Works well for our basic shop needs.

Its a minefield, but with your turnover I would go with a rental contract with someone like Worldpay / Clover.
Sumup is good for lower turnovers as you just pay for what you use without fixed charges and rental fees - you can by a Sumup machine from Amazon for £60ish. The transaction fees are something like 1.6%(ish).
With a rental contract you'll pay around £15 pm for the machine, but the transaction fees are much lower, starting at .4%(ish), with credit cards or corporate cards being up to 1.9%. You'll save in the long run. Just watch you don't pay extra for statements and compliance.

I’ve just bought a SumUp reader and am finding it impossible to pair it with either my iphone or my ipad. I’ve called the helpline and they’ve taken me through the equivalent of switch it all off and switch it back on again. It’s still not working. They’ve apparently emailed the tech department who don’t work weekends so I’m waiting for an email response at some point. They weren’t able to give me a timescale for a reply. So things to be aware of: they don’t have any substantial technical support over the weekend (and presumably Bank Holidays too) and they don’t have a service level agreement for response times to queries. Not great if this is how you’re relying on processing payments for your business, I can’t tell a customer to come back on Monday when the issue might or might not be fixed. I’m not overly impressed.

I use Square.

Have you tried turning on air plane mode on your phone then off again. A fellow market trader gave me that tip on a desperate moment and it works well.

Thanks for the tip @MrsPelligrinoPetrichor but sadly that hasn’t worked. Appreciate you trying to help though.

Compare the likely costs for the size of transactions you'll be taking and factor in any minimum charge, which may be different for debit and credit cards.

It could look very different if your £1800 is made up of a small number of high value transactions because you provide some sort of service to a handful of customers a week, compared with if you're a sweet shop that serves dozens of people a day all spending a few quid.

I know the market and options have changed somewhat, but years ago DP used to run a shop and credit cards was a percentage with no minimum and debit cards were a fixed fee of around 30 p, so if he took a debit card for a small transaction it could take a large chunk of the profit (thankfully most people didn't pay by card for small payments then). But conversely, if you sell something for £1000, a percentage fee could easily be £15-20, so worth being aware of when setting prices etc.

Also look for reviews on reliability and think of alternatives if the system goes down. A lot of people don't carry cash any more so you might find that if you can't take cards they will go elsewhere and it could cost you lost sales. Or if you have a cash machine very near your premises or are able to also accept bank transfers/paypal or similar, then it might be less of an issue.