Wednesday, March 29, 2017

Technology on a Potters Budget

Jeff and I took a big leap last week...


and bought an iPad! We have been wanting one since we switched to using square for our credit card processing. Using the square and our smart phones has saved us a lot of money on processing fees but there have been a few downsides:

1. We have small smart phones.
2. Customers are in the gallery and we left our phones in the house.
3. If the bluetooth chip reader is connected to one phone it doesn't seamlessly switch to the other... so customers have to wait for us to connect the reader.
4. People are handling your phone, signing with their finger on your screen... your phone rings and you place it on your face. What a great way to spread germs, especially during flu season!

I can't even tell you how much research we did before deciding on this tablet. We looked at android tablets. It seemed the affordable ones weren't compatible with the square chip reader. New iPads are super expensive and definitely not in our price range. Refurbished ones that we found online had great prices but some of the sellers, from reading reviews, seemed sketchy. In the end we decided on a refurbished iPad Air 1 from Apple. The case, glass, and battery are new. It comes with the same warranty as a new tablet. The price fit our budget of around $300.

Jeff and I love technology but we don't have lots of extra dough to throw around. We keep our cell phones and computers for as long as possible. My MacBook Pro is a 2009 model! This new iPad should also give us years of service.

6 comments:

  1. Yay you! Welcome to using iPad and square (which I have used only with the phone! I never thought of the germs I'd opened my face up to from people's hands. Good for you shopping around to get a good and warrantied deal! It's sure worth it, especially with the dust and damp in a studio!

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  2. We did not want to use our personal phones for square and our son, great guy, gave us his old phone. It's a perfect solution. We also looked at iPad and I was gifted one by one of my fabulous students. We just bought the chip reader. I think we're set. All I need to do is figure the reader out.
    All new, hopefully things don't change again anytime soon!

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    Replies
    1. We got the chip reader when it first came out. They were running a promotion where you paid for the reader, then got free processing for so many weeks, up to the price of reader... So it ended up being free!
      We potters have to get creative to stretch our dollars.

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  3. That's a good point I hadn't considered about fingers and faces, re: using Square. Of course, I rarely need to use my Square, and almost as rarely talk on the phone!

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  4. I have bought several refurbished Apple products from the Apple store, including this computer, and have always been very happy. You made a smart decision.

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  5. I resist spending money as long as possible. The thing that convinced me to finally fork over the money for the Ipad came to me during a conversation with a group of League of NH Craftsmen members about using Square at shows.
    A glass artist said that he started using the square, and then bought an ipad with the first years saving after dropping his merchant account.

    That made me think about the cost of the Nurit Cedit Card processing machine that does nothing for us now...the bonus of our NEW dedicated CC processing machine? It is an Ipad that has so many other used...The Nurit never played music or would show our website...wish we would have had this insight 7 years ago.

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