Can I ask a technical question? I’m going to have a stall at a craft fair later in the year, but I am only set up to take cash payments. I’m just a hobby crafter and this is a one-off so I don’t want to invest in a card reader. Is there any free way to take payments by card? How do other people do it?
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The only way is with a reader. I use SumUp and invaluable at a fair and found when Imdid fairs increased sales.
With SumUp you pay for the reader as a one off but can also send invoices if ever needed.
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If you have a PayPal account you can ask people to send you a payment through that.
Or you can ask people to do a bank transfer if they use banking apps on their phone.
Otherwise you will need a card reader.
Some bank apps let you send a link to a buyer via text or email, listing a price and item, and then they click through to pay the set amount on the spot. I only learnt I could do that at an event last year. It needs secure wifi plus the buyer giving you their contact info, but it worked really well! I’d forgotten my card reader so was in a pinch and I was pleasantly surprised at how easy it was, the buyers used their cards if I remember correctly, or their phone wallet whatsit.
Sumup air card reader is on offer, only £20 at the moment 
or you could take a punt on finding a cheaper reconditioned one on ebay. You can always sell it on when you no longer need it
Depending on how high tech your phone is it might be possible for people to pay by tapping their card/ phone/ watch to your phone. You do still need to have an account with eg zettle and will still have to pay the processing fees but it does mean you can avoid buying the card reader.
(Sorry I can’t remember what the tech is that your phone needs to have but my partner’s phone has it whilst mine doesn’t so you do need to have a higher end phone, here’s a link to the how to do it page on sumup it just doesn’t tell you what the phone requirements are Accept contactless payments with a phone - SumUp Support - SumUp - Support Centre)
OH is back and apparently your phone needs to have NFT (near field technology). It’s the same thing that you would need to have to be able to make payments in eg the supermarket by waving your phone at the checkout.
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If you have a reasonably modern phone as Sasha has suggested then all you need to do is download the Sumup App, set up an account and set it to take payments by phone. I expect other providers eg. Paypal, Square, Zettle do similar but I’m not familiar with them.
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Square have a thing called Tap to pay, no reader required but you need a fancy phone like Sasha says.
There is no free way to take card payments though, as there are still the processing fees.
It’s worth working out where the closest cash machine atm is, so you can send folk there if necessary, this sometimes worked for me pre card reader.
Only thing with the phone, some people are reticent to tap a phone for payment, whereas with a reader they are happy to use.
Also make sure whatever you get takes Apple Pay. I no longer carry cards on me all in the wallet.
Just get a basic SumUp to work with a reasonablely recent phone or tablet. It’s only £20 ish and really, you HAVE to have it. The last fair I did, I sold 35 items with card, 3 with cash and those were children in my bargain corner and one elderly lady. I also have the next version up which is £80 ish and is supposed to be used independently and supposedly pick up any signal - it lets me down more often than not and I go back to my original basic which is connected to my tablet on 3 - clunky but it’s alot more reliable.
Before card reader I used to use Paypal.Me
Obviously you have to have a Paypal account, and a smartphone or tablet, but the setup was pretty straightforward. It creates a simple link directly to the payment screen for your account, and the customer types in their card details as though buying online.
Have a look at Paypal Help and see if it still exists.
Yes, others do have similar. I have Zettle (that is now part of PayPal) and with a smart phone with NFT you can also take payments using your phone. Only other requirement is a PayPal account. (My understanding is that this can be a personal account, does not have to be a business account.)
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I also use Zettle/paypal - it’s a low processing fee and I have it set up to do next day deposits. I find the reporting system to be exactly what I need it to be. (ie, simple to use).
~ Little1
I was quite intimidated at the thought of getting a card reader but I found it easy to set up! I went for Square.