It was day 9. Just 1 to go, and we started counting down the hours before the day even officially began.
I love my customers, and I consider everyone who steps into my booth a customer, whether they make a purchase or not. I want my customers to be happy, and informed, and generally enjoy their experience. I want them to equate coming into my booth, getting a chance to smell the good smells and having a pleasant conversation with me, with having an overall good time. I want them to come back year after year, a sort of tradition. But by day 9, as I smile and chat, there is a little devil on my shoulder yelling “buy something or get out, can’t you see I’m tired, and thinking hurts my head”…it never comes out of my mouth, and the angel on the other shoulder always wins, but in the last of these long, strange days, the struggle exists. Not always, but sometimes….
I also have a hard time with the prevalence of debit cards and the use of credit cards. For a typical $10.60 transaction paid for with a credit card, I loose .60 to state sales tax, .32 for the credit card fee, and an additional .45 for the processing of the transaction itself. That leaves me with $9.24 for the purchase of three soaps (or about $3.08 each). Now, I cannot legally (or for me ethically) put up a sign asking for a minimum purchase for credit card use. This is a no-no and could lead to me loosing my merchant account if someone complained. But I don’t think we as a society think about exactly how much money the credit card companies and the merchant processing companies make off of our use of these cards. It really costs, and do you think the Wal-Mart’s of the world just write off these costs? No they pass them onto the consumer. It is the little guys like me that get stuck. I need to accept cards, or loose a sale altogether, but I don’t take enough of them to feel like it is fair to pass on the added costs to every customer in the form of a price hike. And it is not legal for me to pass them onto just the people using cards, or legal for me to ask them to make a minimum purchase to help defray the costs either. I mean, yesterday I took a card for a purchase of $3.98- my take after all the fees and taxes- $3.18, about 15% less than I would have if it was paid with cash.
Oh by the way, sales wise it was the best day of the festival. I really did well. The weather was beautiful (even a little cold at night) and people were enjoying their evening. I can’t believe the number of repeat customers that have come in and told me how much they enjoy my products. Although I am tired physically, it sure has been good to rejuvenate my spirit.
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