Bitcoin Forum

requirement: bitinstant debit card (when it arrives)

Arrange a meetup of all of your local bitcoin friends to go to a bar. Get their orders and ensure the bar manager sees them all use their phone to scan the QR code on the debit card. And then hand the debit card to the bar manager.
explaining:
this is a special debit card that people top up via their phones using the smart barcode on the front(QRCODE for the smart ones of us). just takes 10 minutes and saves going to the ATM, plus theres no large fee's
let him take the transaction so the first round of drinks are paid for.

Tell him to keep hold of the card as that is your bar tab for the night. People continue QR code scanning to pay for their drinks throughout the night and the manager keeps swiping the card to debit out the fiat. and u just type in your pin number.
he is getting paid, so he is happy.

At the end of the night tell the manager that the debit card is specially for a community that may return with or without you.
Tell him you will pay the card fee for him to register a card at bitinstant.com to be delivered to him where he can register it in his company(the bar) name and have his own pin number. For bar use only. so anyone from the community can just drop in and pay. AND you will also make that bar your regular meet-up destination which would drum up further business for them.

no techno waffle required.

anyone else with easy ways to get places to accept bitcoin?

Well, not places but people:

Last week I went for drinks with a business partner again and had them pay the bill promising I would pay them my share using Bitcoins. And sold them a couple more at the same time.

They were delighted. Twice that night.

I see no problem here, except the card not being available as of today.

Yeah good idea but I'm still waiting for my card that I'm still not even sure it will be available in Canada

yep i know its not released yet, but atleast preparing speeches and methods to sell the idea ready for when the card is released will make it so much more easier to then get it to mass market

Check out my system bitcoins-r-us.com its in alpha you can use the pos system that will read cards if you hook it up to a card scanner. I can already issue virtual cards from the system. To use the Pos you need to be a member though. www.bitcoins-r-us.com/posweb

nice system but for small occassional purchases in small towns i dont think a merchant will want to implement a second terminal (pc) just for the rare transactions.

but still a great idea for larger businesses with regular bitcoin users requiring it.

No extra terminal need just a web browser and a card reader :D

most the shops where i live have cashier tills and specially modified POS terminals so browsers are not standard features. plus the hassle of merging the web system in with their own stock control system or even just flipping tabs on the taskbar and re entering data is too much for some.

the bitinstant debit card is the easy solution for the non techy business.

but as i said this is for bars/pubs/clubs. your idea would be great for walmart/bestbuy etc which have wider customer base to be worthy of implementing and having a support team to merge the systems together to work seamlessly

I printed out some flyers to hand out to the brick and mortar shops I frequent that explain what Bitcoin is about and how they can sign up with a payment processor to accept them.

how have you explained the system?

as talking about blockchains and mining to a guy that just wants people to pay for drinks groceries or a restaurant meal makes them zone out half way through. just like i zone out 2 seconds after a door-to door sales man comes to my door.

can you link me your flyers so that we can all gain insights of mass market adoption best practices. and improve everyones 'sales pitch'

I'd like to see the flyers too if you can post them here.

feel free to print as many of these as you like

https://dl.dropbox.com/u/52611567/WeLoveBitcoin-trifold-flattened.pdf

https://dl.dropbox.com/u/52611567/BitPay-trifold-flattened.pdf

So far I can say at the very least the proprietor of the Kinkos was interested.

'

I am working on system for people like you, You would be considered a independent sales agent for Bitcoins-R-us. This will work like this,
we have a base price called a discount we charge our independent sales agents we will say .5%. The agent then signs up a merchant and he adds his discount to the base discount and it comes to 1.5%. So now the agent makes 1% of all that merchants transactions.

This is just a rough outline of it, we are still fine tuning the actual discounts and things like that.

I like it, but lets take it further:
Bitinstant debit card flash mobs

That sounds like a good program, although I am unlikely to have time to participate because of my job.

I just want to be able to pay with Bitcoin as much as possible so it benefits me to have some literature I can drop off at the brick and mortar stores where I shop.

The time you took right there was enough to hook a merchant up. It would be a 10-15 minute process at most to set them up. The only thing  you would be responsible is loading the merchants documents up to the system and showing them how to use it. You can negotiate your discounts and such with them and set them up through your account.

I'm going to have to look into making this cunning scheme part of our official marketing plans now......

Agreed!

Franky1 or anyone else who wants to do this....PM me for a Beta version of the card

-Charlie

It is sticky legal ground to use someone elses card and pin to buy stuff from your own bar. It also looks really sketchy to the IRS when you buy drinks from your own bar with your own debit card all the time.

I think there are actual payment providers that handle bitcoin for merhcents.

I do like the idea of using the card to run a tab after explaining that people are sending money to the card via bitcoins. Then mentioning later how easy they are to accept.

I don't think we have the critical mass of bitcoin users needed for it to be much more than a gimmick to draw in new customers at this point.

If you live near a large metro area you can probably find enough interested people to start a Bitcoin group on meetup.com and use have meetings at the venues you'd like to convince to accept Bitcoins.

+1



i understand your statements, ill edit out the whisper pin number into bar managers ear and skip to the pay for them to get their own card. plus IRS dont care about who pays for the drinks.. Aslong as the tax bill tally's up at the end of the year. many pubs that i know of, the bar manager/landlord would put his own money into the cash till to keep the books straight knowing that on pay day he will get it back in the form of his weekly/monthly profits.

Sounds good. Who pays the fees?

I can see us paying the fees if this was part of a preplanned event.

that is something that came to my mind too. but more concerning who pays once the service is fully released.

 as the community is stil small.. telling a merchant he would have to talk to his staff about bitcoin so they know what to do.
or change his EPOS-cashiers till system slightly if using the non bitinstant service. i find it then unfair to mention if they sell $10 of product. that they would only receive $9.50 or less. due to card issuer fee's bitinstant conversion fee's and commission

i think its best that merchants get exact retail prices given to them. and bitcoins being higher then mtgox prices to cover the costs.

ofcourse later on when bitcoin is more widespread then the, who pays the fee's can be re-evaluated once bitcoin becomes more popular.

secondly it would add value to bitcoin and as we are burdened with the fee's it would help to increase bitcoin prices to compensate.

This is exactly why this debit card is so awesome.  It allows people to be introduced to bitcoin in a familiar way that shows not only can it be as liquid as USD but also has so many other advantages.  When I get that card, I'm closing (or at least emptying) the little bit of money I keep with my local credit union and using bitcoin and that card to pay for 100% of things.