What are the best ways to accept payment at expos as a vendor?

I’m gonna be vending my first expo here in a little under two weeks on September 25th. I was wondering what you guys use and think are the best methods for people to pay for any animals I sell there. I’m gonna bring cash of course. I’ve got PayPal, Square so I can make invoices and I have the little phone card reader, and I’ve got Venmo. What do you guys use/ recommend? I can’t wait for it to be honest. Gonna be a really cool experience.

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There is risk of fraud/loss with any electronic payment form. I use venmo and paypal but I won’t say they’re necessarily ‘safe’. I use square for my other businesses but I haven’t gone to using it for snakes because I have a friend who was burned pretty bad by square. If using square, make sure you check ID and take a picture of it for your records so you would be able to prove to square later that you did check ID if someone disputes the charge.

The problem is that none of the electronic payment services specifically cover live animal sales (outside of brick and mortar stores) in their TOS leaving large loopholes for customers to file disputes, and the payment processor is going to side with the customer 99% of the time. It’s an old scam to buy a snake, receive it, claim it died and get paypal to give you your money back to so you end with both the snake and the money.

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Also make sure you check with whoever is running the show. Because of the exact stuff that @ballornothing stated, I went to a show that had big signs on the entrance, before you bought the entrance fee saying this show is cash only. ATMs located in lobby. Now I can’t say for certain if every single vendor followed the rules or not, but I only saw cash deals and receipts myself.

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Off topic a bit, but what expo are you going to? I’m curious because I’m also in Upstate NY

Sorry for the late reply, but I’m going to the Capital District Reptile Expo happening this Sunday in Albany.