Ever been at a show, seen an awesome shirt, but didn’t have the cash for it?

As a fan, this can be a let-down — but as a musician, it’s lost money.

Well, those days are now over!

If you have a smartphone, you can now take credit cards at your tasty pig parts merch booth.

In other words: There’s an app for that!

One such app is Square. It has no sign-up fees, and its plug-in card reader is sent to you for free upon registration. All what you need is a bank account for the money to be deposited into, and then Square will take just 2.75% of each purchase as their fee. And that’s it! (no monthly fees or anything)

With Square, you simply swipe a fan’s card on your phone and have them sign their name on the screen. BOOM! Merch sale done. Your fans can even have a receipt e-mailed to them on the spot, just in case they don’t trust you and your fancy new technology.

Last, you can log into your Square account online to look at all your sales, where they were made, and even keep a photo inventory to see what’s selling good and what’s not. (market analytics, yo!)

If you can’t use Square, there are other apps out there too. Intuit works pretty much the same as Square, and also gives you options of paying either 2.7% of each sale or 1.7% plus a $12.95/month flat fee. I haven’t used Intuit myself, so I can’t tell you much else about how it compares to Square.

One more thing: If you have a business bank account with Bank of America, they also are now offering a mobile pay system completely free. They don’t seem to take any % off the top of each sale like the apps above, but it’s only available to BofA business account holders.

Either way, you’ll no longer be forced to turn away fans at your merch booth just because they don’t have cash. (fuck ATM fees!) That means more potential merch buyers for you and, in turn, more money!

You’re welcome.