Bitcoin Forum

I just made an ebay purchase using bitcoins via gyft.

https://www.gyft.com/buy-gift-cards/ebay/

So now that I can buy anything on Amazon through purse.io and ebay through gyft.com that covers about 90% of the goods I could ever want to buy online. Both at a discount.

very cool indeed. Is that real?

I have used them before for Amazon rather than ebay. I can therefore say that they work, at least with Amazon. I don't see why ebay would be any different.

eBay and PayPal split could be the main reason of eBay's recent BTC move.

Looks like you can use egifter too. They look good because you can buy the exact dollar amount while gyft was giving me the price in $5 increments and over $50 it was $25 increments.

https://www.egifter.com/giftcards/ebay-gift-card

It would be great if both Ebay and Amazon accepted Bitcoin, but Paypal doesn't like Bitcoin so Ebay probably will not support Bitcoin anytime soon. Amazon, on the other hand, might begin accepting Bitcoin within a few years.

As long as I can use Bitcoin to buy things on their sites, it's no big deal whether they accept it or not. Nobody will buy bitcoins just so they can buy items on those sites.

And you can get a discount already using third party sites so there's not much benefit for the buyer other than one or two less clicks.

Still you will always need to buy gift card right? What happens if you don't use all the credit on the cards? Can you keep the leftover in your ebay/amazon account?

Yes. Any left over money stays gets credited to your account and you can use it in other purchases. One gift card could buy many things.

e-commerce using bitcoin is limited as of now, but in any case, it does look like it would take over a huge chunk of the market.

I think it's nice that there are places where I can get gift cards that I can use to buy almost anything that I want.

Reading the subject header gives the impression that you can buy direct, I got quite happy but then saw it was via gift cards.  This is still good but and thanks for sharing, I agree that it will probably be Amazon accepting Bitcoin before Ebay.  Am I right in thinking that this is for the US only?

Seems like more supply-side pressure to me. Should get eBay sellers to accept and hold BTC directly so the price doesn't tank more.

Why 90% ? Is there anything on eBay that rejects Gyft card ?

eBay prohibits some items, and simply doesn't have constant sellers of others.

This isn't really new. My very first purchase with Bitcoins was at Amazon using a gift card I bought from Jeremy at SpendBitcoins in 2011. Too bad he only services Australia now. His service was awesome. I only ever had one problem using his service and I found him on the forum, sent him a PM and he made it right immediately. We need more people like him on this forum.

BTW: BtcBuy did the same thing but I never used them.

I never used Purse.io as I feel unsafe giving out my information to a third-party. I used Gyft instead to buy Amazon giftcard. Might be exchaning Bitcoin into Ebay giftcard if I find anything that interest me on Ebay.

I think the Gyft site/app is awesome and you can find gift cards for a pretty wide variety of places. Plus you get 3x points for every card bought with Bitcoin. It is not a significant amount but it adds up over time and is a nice little discount bonus.

I was bidding on an eBay auction for a Chinese silver Panda coin recently and won the auction. I then got on Gyft and was able to buy pretty much the exact amount I needed on an eBay gift card, in $5 increments. Bought the card with Bitcoin and had it in my account instantly, no confirmations needed. I used the card when buying the item and the whole process from winning the auction to paying with the gift card only took like 4 minutes. So that was def. a good experience in my book. I will add here that Gyft had a little note saying to allow up to 4 hours for the card to show up in ebay's systems, however mine was credited instantly when I typed the code at check out.

With physical stores' gift cards you can either print them out or just whip out your phone and have the cashier scan the bar code in the Gyft app. I've used it to buy a few packs of smokes at CVS when in a pinch. (now CVS stopped selling tobacco products, oh well)

I don't really feel like this is something entirely new. Even before there was anyone selling ebay giftcards for bitcoin, we could always login to localbitcoins and sell for paypal. But you'd still go through several third parties. Not that I have a problem with giftcards but if a store accepts BTC directly it's always preferred.

Well as far as I can see it cuts down a bit on the fees you have to take. If you were purchasing an auction from eBay and you wanted to fund your PP quickly you'd generally take a decent 5-7% hit compared to the current exchange market. That being said, having spare cash in your CC and bank account are generally a must - so this is really only a scenario useful for people like Elwar who are funding everything using Bitcoin.

of this is true then I am gonna be truely thankful to you for providing me this info.
this can be very helpful to me and to many others .

I'm surprised that you guys are only learning about this now, it's been quite a while since Gyft started accepting Bitcoin. This goes to show that not enough is being done to get important Bitcoin news/updates out to the masses. News like this should have already spread all over the world by now and the Bitcoin crowd on here should've been the first to know about it.

Thanks, I didn't know about this.  It seems that every day we take a step forward.  Since credit card and paypal fees are usually hidden it would make sense that most vendors would want to accept bitcoins rather than use higher cost options.  It is safe for the buyer because we can assume that amazon and other major retailers are not going to scam us, and they can simply wait a confirmation or two before shipping.  The whole thing can be as seamless as using a cc.  Nice!

this could be a problem indeed, i doubt they will reinburse you if you pay via gift using bitcoin, but paypal was talking about integrating bitcoin, maybe it will change with this

I knew about Gyft accepting bitcoin. I just had not seen ebay on there. Ebay has so many items that it would be difficult to find anything you wanted to purchase that you could not buy through ebay. You can even buy boats, cars...a house.

I said 90% of the things I want to buy online because Amazon and ebay cover pretty much 90% of whatever retail goods you might want to buy online. The rest need to just start accepting Bitcoin so it's 100%.


Oh and as far as having money left over on your gift card...using http://www.egifter.com you can buy a card in $1 increments. My purchase was $43.97 so my gyft card has $1.03 remaining on it but had I used egifter I would only be off by 3 cents.

Still it is not as good as Ebay directly accepting Btcoins as a payment option. We first need to purchase Gyft cards using the Bitcoin, and then exchange the Gyft credit to purchase commodities from Ebay. Why can't they just tie-up with Bitpay or Coinbase, and make the payment option more easier? Already they have split from Paypal, so I can't find a reason why they shouldn't.

Because Paypal is still the most popular payment option available for the mainstream public. They are not familiar with Bitcoin and all the horror stories being spread about Bitcoin, are not helping our cause.

I would like to see direct adoption too, but I am afraid we are still a long way from being able to handle mainstream adoption.

We cannot even agree on a small upgrade to 20 MB block size.... From big companies like these, this might look like a amateur show, run by children.

I still believe in the technology, but the failure point seems to be human implementation.  :(

Its good news you can buy second hand item for bitcoin you can afford it because of bitcoin but it is the same price as you buy php/dollar but bicoin can gain by posting or replying some post of people woh asking what they curious about

As a seller on eBay I would be glad to offer a discount if buyer pays via gyft. Is there any way for the seller to see how the payment was made? Could the merchant verify that the payment was made using a gyft card?
I'd totally give 20% off just to encourage people to use it

So, I gotta buy an ebay & PP account that was created in the USA first?

So we are losing the propaganda war, which is being launched by the big bankers against Bitcoin? Feeling sad. And regarding paypal, it might be the most popular option right now. But a large number of people have got their fingers burnt with Paypal, and don't want to use it again. What we need to do is to show that Bitcoin can become a better alternative for Paypal.

http://lifehacker.com/5821634/why-you-should-ditch-paypal-and-use-these-other-services-to-send-people-money?comment=40991793#comments

Already shown in 2011. People will accept PayPal payments until they get chargebacked, and send them because they can chargeback (and PayPal, with effectively no time limit due to court orders, almost always sides with the sender even if they are a convicted financial criminal). https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1044827.msg11341171#msg11341171

This offer is on the network for sometime now and I know people who have used it frequently. I hear the service might be a bit long, but it's trusted.


So why not use it if the time comes.

So I saw this:
http://www.ebay.com/itm/100-eBay-Gift-Card-for-only-95-Email-delivery/261913083466?_trksid=p2045573.c100033.m2042&_trkparms=aid%3D111001%26algo%3DREC.SEED%26ao%3D1%26asc%3D31478%26meid%3Dd7effac689bf45b4b5782321f73c2cea%26pid%3D100033%26rk%3D1%26rkt%3D4%26mehot%3Dpp%26sd%3D261913083466

It's a $100 ebay gift card for $95 that is emailed to you. So could you not theoretically go on egifter and buy a $95 ebay gift card and buy the ebay $100 gift card, enter your PayPal info and get your $100 ebay gift code in your e-mail...which you can then use to buy a $100 for $95 which you then use to buy a $100 gift card for $95 and on and on and on....?

I tried it but PayPal asked me to verify my account with a text message to my phone and I don't have a US cell phone anymore. I use Skype and don't get text messages.

I wonder if the ebay and paypal fees would eat up that 5$ profit per round.  


But Gyft is really awesome, you can send anyone a gift card via email instantly and you make 3% when you pay with BTC

Ebay should directly accept bitcoin payments and then it would be good enough as PP can be charged back but not bitcoins. Their split up with PayPal has not made a significant difference as they only offer that payment option for US goods. For Indians they do have another payment option paisapay but that's also not good enough.

That's really great news! I need to buy some stuff from Ebay and I don't have credit card, paypal acc etc. (I don't use because of shitty banks).
Also we can be sure about that those gift cards weren't bought with a "stollen credit card".

I don't see why eBay would ever openly embrace bitcoin considering ebay and paypal are basically married ..

publicity may be one of the reasons. and it is also a sign that they are genuinely interested in accepting changes into how we pay for things.

That's what I wish for...

I could be wrong, but wasn't there some sort of split a bit ago that meant that ebay might actually look into accepting bitcoin? I vaguely remember that happening.

Yes, through Braintree they indicated they would start accepting Bitcoin payments.

http://www.newsbtc.com/2015/04/15/ebay-and-paypal-to-accept-bitcoin-payments-through-braintree/

But what's the big deal of the extra step? Do people want ebay to accept bitcoins directly for some sort of publicity or just because the price?

This is a major step toward the chicken and egg problem of "why would I get bitcoins if there's nobody who accepts them vs why would I accept them if nobody uses them".

Getting 3% back by paying with bitcoins through gyft makes using bitcoins better than paying with dollars. What advantage would ebay accepting it give other than 2 less clicks?

I was about to post the same, but then I realized how volatile the Bitcoin is. If Ebay accepts direct payments in the form of Bitcoin or other crypto, then there is a chance of incurring loss, as the exchange rate can wildly fluctuate in a matter of minutes. So it will be better for them to go for Bitcoin-based payment processors, such as Bitpay.

Wow, this is very awesome. Now you can almost entirely use bitcoin to make online purchases. I may be using this website if it is legit. But i would love to convert BTC to any giftcard.

I thought that Ebay has started accepting bitcoin I mean directly ... this was disappointing :(

I mean it is good to be able to buy gift cards for ebay from gyft and then buy from ebay itself but It is a long way from websites like amazon and ebay to start accepting bitcoin directly.

The exchange rate of bitcoins is an issue but Ebay should use a payment processor that is accepted world wide while PayPal ins't accepted worldwide. There are some countries that cannot receive payments via PayPal which is not the case with bitcoins. Bitpay could be a great payment processor if introduced or any other payment processor that can convert bitcoins to USD and save the balance in USD.

So, ya have to buy a gift card first, and ya pay for the gift card with bitcoins?

What if I want to buy a $600 to $1000 item, is there a gift card for that much,
or would I have to buy a bunch of $100 dollar gift cards?

The largest gift card you can buy is $500.

Yeah I tried to buy a card for eBay on gyft and they ended up cancelling my order and demand I send verification through some third party site. Nah, on my list of things to do.

they will never accept it, as long as there is the 1MB tx limit, they deals with an enormous amount of users, they would saturate it in a second, the only way for now to buy thing with bitcoin from those services is using gift or purse.io or all4btc

another way would be to pay someone(trusted) in bitcoin and he buy the item you want

Where can I buy WalMart cards for bitcoins?

How does it work if I buy a card online, do they mail me the card?

Walmart sells food and I like to eat. :)

but if they accepted bitcoin payments, how would that affect buyer/seller protection? people can and will lie to save every penny they can; chargeback scams already happen often enough on ebay.

this is great news. i hoped that they start accepting bitcoin themselves but this is good too.

is there any place that you can buy steam wallet money (i forgot what it is exactly called, wallet code or something like that, that you can buy and gift that someone can top up their steam wallet)

https://steambitshop.com/

https://steamloader.com


As for Walmart, Gyft and Egifter stopped selling Walmart cards.
I did find this though, I'm not sure how it works:
https://www.cardflip.com/product-category/walmart/

I have the same feeling. It looks like someone else is capitalizing and earning additional fees instead Amazon or eBay. Sure it is convenient but it is just at the same like adding additional middleman services along the way. And bitcoin economy can't really bank of this fact because support of bitcoin is not official. I probably would rather exchange bitcoins and with my fiat buy directly from Amazon than use this method.

ebay wouldn't do this directly because they thrive on the fact that the buyer is protected so some sort of escrow would need to be used and that's essentially what Paypal is, but obviously it can be easily gamed. Paypal need to start footing the bill out of their own pocket when something doesn't go right but that wont happen so the alternative is to stop using them but that wont happen either.

You would rather pay 1% to convert to fiat to pay directly on Amazon or Ebay as opposed to keeping it in bitcoins and saving up to 50% on Amazon or 3% on eBay by keeping it in bitcoin?

PayPal supports the buyer/sender of the money in any case and thus the seller gets no protection whatsoever. A solid proof needs to be submitted to win a dispute and hence PayPal is not a convenient payment processor. Bitcoin payments will at least be a safe method to avoid chargebacks but still it can be abused if the seller is a fraud. In that case, ebay can offer an escrow as you recommended where the funds are released after the item has been delivered. Bitcoin payments are not restricted to any country unlike PP which is not an allowed payment processor in few countries.

Ebay may adopt bitcoin payment due to its popularity and we can only hope that it does happen.

Its cool, would be nice if gyft showed any discounts clearly at the site as far as i can see i couldn't work it out.  Not tried the service yet though.

It's 3% when you buy with bitcoins.

If gyft can do that, I'm sure others can do the same. The point is it doesn't matter if that is just gift cards business because once gyft successfully implement that it will set an example for others to follow. And i wonder why other businesses fail to see the advantage. There is no middle party like credit card companies and for sure they don't need to pay a share of their earnings to them. And for that they can offer better price compared to competitors and have the edge here in business. Oh well..

It's better than nothing, but I would still like to be able to directly receive BTC from a public master key as a merchant, rather than be dealing with gift cards. It will eventually happen. Just like it should eventually happen with Steam if Gaben wasn't such a stuck up.

I don't really have any problems with Gyft supporting Bitcoin instead of eBay directly accepting it. I feel like eBay would just dump any Bitcoin received for fees anyways, just as other large merchants dump all BTC for fiat when they accept if for payments. I feel like Gyft at least holds some of their BTC, and they were an early supporter of Bitcoin so I have no problem supporting them with my BTC. They provide a fair & reliable service and allow you to indirectly spend your Bitcoin at a wide variety of merchants, and give you 3x Gyft points for doing it; I don't see what's not to like about that.

And you definitely can buy pretty much anything on eBay. They are a Huge company though and still can't lower seller fees, which end up being 10-15% after PayPal fees are factored in too. I'd rather see Bitcoin market competitors to eBay like CryptoThrift and OpenBazaar succeed.

**One downside to Gyft that I see though is that they are US-only, or at least they were. It probably doesn't matter much anyways though as I'm pretty sure you can use the Gyft-purchased cards online with most merchants. Still would be nice to see them expand and be able to use purchased cards at brick-and-mortar merchants in other parts of the world.

I just feel more secure with direct BTC usage, controlling my addresses and whatnot, and what you just mentioned. With direct BTC it could be worldwide without distinctions on the fees.