Bitcoin Forum

This can be challeging but, i have tried the strategy below:

walk into any offline store i.e (restaurant) and ask one of the staff that you will like to speak with the  the management of the restaurant.

Most people will direct you straight to the management, other's might want to know the reason behind such request.

just be prepare for follow-up response;

If, you are given the opportunity, open your presentation in this manner;

I'm interested in promoting your services/product's on bitcoin related forum!
Do you know you'll be losing 35%-45% of your customer's (tourist) who  uses bitcoins?

At this point be prepared to tell them more about bitcoin.

Close your presentation, try to be brief as possible.

Remember to make reference to bitcointalk forum, because it offer's more information  (foundation) with comprehensive lesson about bitcoin & the use of bitcoin.

Creation & distribution of short flyer's with same message will work fine for those who dislike meeting one-one with the management of offline stores.


Thanks
Bitcseo

And then clients need to wait 6 hours for transaction to confirm because network can't handle all transactions.

Bitcoin is not to be used in that way.

The best way is to introduce bitcoin to them. Teach them what is bitcoin and how is transactions are done. Teach them how the price inflates and deflates. Teach them how it can help their business.
Encouragement is useless if the store owner is not well versed with bitcoin, its operations, nature and transactions. It could only work if they know and understand what it is all about.

This would be very hard as I think only a small proportion of their customers are likely to use Bitcoin let alone know what it is. Maybe in the future this might be more likely but I don't think it's worth them accepting bitcoins just yet

How about no? If the manager or everybody that works on the store doesn't know anything about bitcoin, then that would be a lot of work to someone who would be assigned to make their store accept bitcoins. You can do stuffs like persuading/manipulating/convincing the manager to accept bitcoin but it's actually bugging me off because there's a lot of work that should be done before the whole thing could be implemented on their store.

Bitcoin isn't like a product that you could introduce to someone and if they liked it, you would just give it to them or sell it to them and then they can use it right after. You have to understand the whole bitcoin thing before you could actually use it on your store as a mode of payment.

Once bitcoin transactions become instant, this will be a possibility. but having to wait anywhere from 15 mins to 4 hours for confirmations makes it impossible.
They could use bitcoin for online services, like reservations or something like that though. or maybe some sort of "pre paid" meal where you pay online before actually ordering at the restaurant?

You are truly amazing and quite intelligent. Maybe this way is one of the things that can make all the people who use the bitcoin's getting excited and all those who have not known a bitcoin will use it. But I see this is not enough, because fruition if this works then it will only help users bitcoin and only a small percentage will increase user bitcoin. However this is not a problem because this can be very helpful for us

i have done this a few times and had various success and failures.
here is some advice.

1. ensure you are living in an area where there are many bitcoiners
2. ensure the retailer you pick is sells a product/service/food/beverage, that bitcoiners would use regularly
3. its normally best if your introducing it. that at first you become the retailers exchanger by setting up a prepaid bartab. enough to cover a few weeks of transactions, and handing the retailer more fiat as the total gets to the limit each week/fortnight

i mention this because if the retailer only gets one customer a month. its not worth the hassle for the retailer, even if you were to explain bitpay/coinbase as oppose to direct prepaid bartab method.

the best success is using a bar/restaurant where you and a group would have regular bitcoin meetups at.(emphasis: actual real bitcoin customers regularly) where in the beginning it is more of a gimmick to train staff to ask for 0.XX BTC (i say gimmick because they know they already have $£ in the bartab).. but thats just a zero loss confidence giver to the retailer to atleast try it and learn it at first.

but as soon as they know how to show a QR code and mention how much BTC the beer/meal will be, you can do things more official like getting them to set up their own bitpay/coinbase account at 0% fee(for small local retailers doing under 30 tx a month.) as oppose to visa/mastercard which is upto 2.5%

lol that's just bummer. offline store would still prefer fiat.
they will sure accept you as a marketing partner maybe take advantage of it but they may not accept btc in the end. if a customer come and wants to pay btc, they'd just say, they accept btc later.

Yeah, now it's 99.99% offline store anywhere to prefer and use fiat as a means of payment, since they may be bound by the regulations of each country or maybe they want to get profit in sight. for now to only a small fraction of offline stores accept the BTC, but I believe that in the future all offline store or company will use the bitcoin in any transaction conducted

The only way for you to convince these people, is for you to show them that there are a new untapped source of income for them. I did this with a pub and I generated repeat business by hosting some

Bitcoin meetups at this pub. We gather there every second week and we only pay with Bitcoin. The worst thing that will happen, is if you convinced him/her that Bitcoin is this wonderful new currency,

and after 1 or 2 months he only received like 10 to 100 transactions. So once the door is open, you have to make sure people know about it, and they use that service or merchant regularly.  ;)

Time is a good reason to choose for bitcoin, but if you look f.e. towards online vs offline you see many stores are working on a online presence.
With bitcoin they will be able to offer their products to millons of extra people.

It doesn't work as I've tried to explain bitcoins to my friend and the major drawback is the price fluctuations. We kept discussing about what should be a rate that would be preferable and profitable for his business and we couldn't achieve that stable rate. This is the major reasons that many stores don't accept bitcoins.

It's a good idea, however I don't think that such a presentation, talking to most businesses, would mean anything to them since they would likely see a very, very small amount of revenue increase that might not be worth setting up the wallet system and exchanging everything, including the additional work their employees would have to do.

Bitcoin is best suited for online transactions and I agree that confirmations would be a pain. No store would like to wait and they prefer instant payment like debit/credit card or cash payments. There are many negatives that affect its acceptance but since bitcoins are mined, I don't think it would ever be an instant method of payment.

Well I think there is no best way to encourage offline store to accept BTC. I said this since the transactions now are slow and if more joins in I think the network couldn't handle it. Maybe in the future bitcoin can handle it but not now. For now just let time tell what will happen in the future and let's wait and see if someday many offline stores will accept BTC.

Do "we" make a good first impression?
Is Bitcointalk forum the type of place you send people, if they are not prepared for a certain level of "uncomfortable issues", some of them potentially, seriously disturbing?
Oops... Love you guys, have a great day.  :D

I think the best idea for slow transaction of bitcoin better to release a bitcoin atm so that we can use bitcoin atm card just like a normal credit cards .
So no need to wait for confirmation and i think you can incourage them to accept it..

Then they might want to use an altcoin like ether for shorter confirmation periods.

No one will want to wait 20-30 min for a confirmation. People who earn Bitcoin can always pay offline by using a debit card or an exchange.

OP proposes some sort of Bitcoin evangelism  ::) "Excuse me sir, do you have a moment to talk about Bitcoin - our lord and savior?"

Seriously though, it's better to discuss it on the internet on some business forums, because you will have better chances to find people with understanding of the technology or willing to learn.

There's no harm trying to explain the stores about the use of bitcoins. Many stores already are tired of paying taxes and I've also seen medical stores escaping to print bills as they need to pay tax. If they get to know about bitcoins, they would at least give it a thought. By not trying, they would too not be aware of this currency.

When buying at the till i would ask if they accept bitcoin if they say no then i usually dont bother explaining but if they ask what is that i tell thell the benefits to there business.

@katrimans, YES, i think there are people who are curious when it comes to experimenting new system especially if, it has to do with an increase sale (customer's)

Most manager's would'nt mind investing few hour's of their time in order to learn something new.

Thanks
Bitcseo

Please make a video while you do this. I'm sure it will be really entertaining. Try this on more than one restaurant and differentiate all the reactions in the Chinese, Japanese, Italian and all the other restaurants.

@calkob," ..When buying at the till i would ask if they accept bitcoin..."

☞You just got another tip's from your comment;

walk up to offline store(s) as a customer who is interested in breakfast,dinner or whatsoever,
before ordering for menu; just slice the question in this manner to the attendent;

Pls, do you accept bitcoin here?

.... Oh no, we don't.. or what is that..? they may ask. explain to them when necessary alternatively just say, I'm sorry i'll ONLY like to make payment via bitcoins before you walk away.

*If same request is made by one or more customer's, the serious manager will love & eager to know more about  bitcoinsBTC_⚐.

Thanks
Bitcseo

I don't think it's ever gonna be a comfortable fit for real world transactions.

Maybe in a few years everything'll be slicker but fees will be too high for that mythical coffee.

I think this will be pretty hard considering that not everyone knows what bitcoin is. Some people might even think its a scam plus it doesn't have a short confirmation time.  But I think this will be great in the future

i think it depend on the store manager or the owner of the store that what kind of mentality he has. if he is educated and know something about computer and internet the it is so easy to encourage him and hope that he will understand you easily. but he he is not educated and having no knowledge about computer and internet then it will take most of your time and my be in-vain..

The part of lossing 35-45% of potential client will be caught as lie easily buy the management. For offline store or online store the main thing needed for them to start accepting bitcoin payments is the local bitcoin exchanger in their country from where they can directly convert bitcoin into equal or even more value in the fiat to their bank.

Bitpay have already started expanding their supported country and making easy for local merchants to accept bitcoin in those countries. So if they can directly convert those bitcoin from clients to their bank than those merchants will be happy to offer bitcoin payments for their techy clients. ;)

I'm glad you've made an effort to determine a way to encourage store managers to adopt Bitcoin by informing them about promoting their products on this forum, but this isn't as easy to be done as said. Earlier I too had this urge to get people involved in Bitcoins, move away from credit card accepting POC's by letting people who would like to pay in Bitcoins pay via the Bitcoin POC or a wallet. But, considering the payment times and the delay in blockchain confirmation, you'd have to ask the store owner to use some other offchain services to handle the payments. It's going to be a time taking process, cause I'd first have to explain what Bitcoins are to the ones not aware of it, and then gain their assurance as to how it'd benefit them over normal payment channels.

Wow, that's a smooth shift from bitcoin acceptance to tax evasion. Anyhow, cash is always better for such purpose than bitcoin (for physical store at least) as it leaves no trace, especially when merchant is using 3rd party payment processor (i.e. BitPay).

The best way was already discovered by BitPay years ago.

Immediately convert all Bitcoin purchases to fiat through an app given to the proprietor and pay them before even one confirmation. You also need to do it without charging them any fee or a promise of no fee for an introductory period of like a year. The problem BitPay had in the past was people canceling their accounts and dropping Bitcoin after the introductory period expired.

The best way to encourage offline stores to accept bitcoin, in my opinion, is to show them how it can benefit them and what they can do with it.  You need to eduicate these people so they know this is nothing to be scae

totally agree with this, if i was a merchant offering a service or good. i wouldnt want to wait hours to be receive i receive the money. although the transaction is instant. the customer could alwys double spend putting me at risk.

I think its hard to encourage them because bitcoin is not legal in every each country..  but if they can be start a business in online you can encourage them to accept bitcoin too here in my country because anytime we can easily convert bitcoin into our fiat..
If they can make a benefits or profit with their business with bitcoin and they are seeing always that the price of bitcoin is always increase instead of decreasing i think they can easily accept bitcoin as payment..

I think they've changed it to 30 tx/month (max $1000/day) for free (Starter plan), I see no info on this being for limited period https://bitpay.com/pricing


^ and that's the problem right there. There probably are few places where there's enough active bitcoiners able to create enough demand. That's why many of the businesses on bitcoin directories started to accept BTC (or even lie about accepting BTC) just as a cheap marketing stunt.

I don't think that's smart. I tried to use BTC to pay my Hungarian dentist earlier this year (even made a topic about it), but when she told me she didn't know what BTC was, I quickly understood I would have enough time to explain, then convince her about BTC. So you must make sure before you begin, that the person you're talking to is BTC aware. You may also note that in many countries, BTC isn't legal tender, meaning that you will not be able to get a receipt, which is no big deal for the customer, but more trouble for the shopkeeper because he/she won't be able to enter the transaction in his books. That may eventually be appreciated, but frankly, it's not worth it. I don't think I'll ever pay with BTC at a restaurant, and I'm not even sure I want it. Cash remains the best option for small face2face purchases.

I not sure they will believing about your saying because there are other people is giving different opinions with you and maybe it's just you as a customer is saying about bitcoin and they're not finding another people like you is saying or needs bitcoin payment.

I've seen in many stores, described as we accept credit/debit card. Same manner as an additional payment gateway it can be described bitcoins are accepted. Though you don't get big profit or large number of users in the beginning, when years pass situations gets changed.

There are still so many challenges to adapt bitcoin, the first one is the speed transaction, time is a very important things for some people, if i want to purchase 1 things and i need to wait for 3 hours to finish the transaction for sure i won't use it
The second is the exchange rate the price of bitcoin is not the same for all time, the store will need extra strength to calculate and convert the price
So i think there is still so many things that need to develop before adapting bitcoin in large scale

Very good point, and I have never viewed bitcoin as a currency to buy day-to-day things.  I don't get how folks insist that it be used in restaurants and grocery stores and etc.  It's digital gold.  Digital silver.  It's a store of value to be held onto and bartered with occasionally, like on bitcointalk.  Does anyone else think that?

Bitcoin credit/debit card is possible but that is if more and more people get to learn about bitcoin in such town. Maybe if the btc debit card provider massively advertised their services and people respond to it.  problem with such is the anonymity.

I wonder so. probably it's not good idea to use bitcoin payment on a restaurant because of the long time we need to wait before the transaction is confirmed.

I prefer to offer bitcoin this way to offline shop that sells stuff except food and drink, maybe book store, clothes store, shoes store or kind of thing.

The best way is to have a media covering the Bitcoin everytime so that the influence will spread rapidly . Bitcoin will never win on a Debit/Credit card at this moment but I'm hoping that the time will come that people around the world use Bitcoin .

I have actually tried what you did in a somewhat-big-ish store here and after all the talks and all, the response I got was "I'll be looking into it" which of course, what I was definitely going to get and it's only been nearly a week since I did that.

I'm not optimistic but I really do hope they would. I'm guessing they are still either looking into it whether they would profit or not.

As a creator/inventor, one way to convince people to believe in a specific product or service is to INVENT REASON why they should use this over the other by outlining the benefit to them.

Year's back, i still remember a staff at local bank who almost call security agency because i explained to her that my bank account has been linked to my paypal account online!

*As a computer repairer & spare part reseller, i've spent more time explaining the benefit of a specific computer parts (product) to offline customer's. And in most cases they just got convinced and purchase the product/service.

☞Sometime's, marketing it's ALL about the person behind a specific product & service and not necessary where you meet the customer.

Thanks
Bitcseo

@prtty2gal2, Good job!

There is no harm in trying.
Myself, i got ONLY 2 positive response out of 15 people in whom i've discussed so far.

Based on this statistic, i think it's NOT i waste of time since, the other 10 people said they'll get in contact with me when they are ready to handle such virtual currency, the 3 manager's responded negatively. so, i guess they have little or no interest.

☞So, far i'm motivated to keep up with the experimentation.

Thanks
Bitcseo

Interesting. For info, what kind of stuff is that store selling? I can't imagine getting a soda and paying with BTC, but I could probably consider it to buy some large appliance, or anything above €250.

I think the main problem would be the long transaction times. If something is done to decrease it then your suggestion may work.  :)

It will be very diffiicult to encourage offline store to accept bitcoin(BTC), Because we all know that it needs an active network connection for us to gain bitcoins. And I think the best way for the meantime to encourage them is we must use altcoins first as a tool for them to avail bitcoin. atleast in some other way we can use altcoins anyway for offline transactions it will depend on us how are we going to explain to them the benifits of it once it is converted into bitcoins. ;)

Give the offline store some insight about bitcoin and the future of bitcoin and the future of their shop if they accepting bitcoin. Accepting bitcoin will be a good move for offline store imo.

I do not understand this. Are altcoins not using internet connection to make transactions? Why do you have to use altcoins to introduce bitcoin? In my understanding, altcoin and bitcoin are basically the same, only different model. IF you want to introduce it to merchandizers, introduce bitcoin to stores accepting credit cards. They already have the infrastructure needed for bitcoin transactions.

I think if stores want to do business they should accept zero confirmation. I was always wondering how much do they really risk to lose when accepting zero confirmation? I may be wrong but I think - nothing really. All transactions made by regular people buying goods get confirmed sooner or later, right?

Only problem that they may have to face most commonly is the long confirmation times needed to actually have a safe transaction (even with a higher fee, if a new block get generated after 30 minutes or 40 minutes gap). Although they may use bitpay for btc-fiat conversion but there would be certain fees to pay though.

That's just giving free stuff away.

No one should accept 0 confirmation payments, well, you can but you'll end up scammed.

Yes, the time it takes for transactions to be confirmed surely doesn't help bitcoin's cause. There must be a way to make transactions faster without making the fees go higher. That and a better way of encouraging more shops to accept bitcoin would certainly boost transaction counts and offline stores accepting bitcoin.

I guess the best way to encourage offline stores accept bitcoin is a way to introduce the store with bitcoin. Well, by getting to know the system and how bitcoin, the store owner would certainly use bitcoin, especially if he is to raise the price if the person wants to buy something using bitcoin. if I have a shop, I would accept bitcoin.

@Mr.grin, thanks for your contribution.

Mr.grin as someone who own a physical store do you think we could see this happening in future? i mean customer's walk in to offline store to purchase product, log-in to bitcoin account to conclude this transaction with payment via bitcoins!

Personally, it will be great when the use of bitcoins get's to this level.

We'll keep creating such awareness. Also, i noticed paypal is unsatisfied with MOST account  holder's who ONLY log-in to their paypal account once or twice in a month for transaction. They are expecting more from their customer's just the way they normally use their VISA/MASTER CARD.


Regard's
Bitcseo

Yeah  you are right! The problem of that is the transaction! Because sending bitcoin from another country to other is pretty long it takes time i dont know why but it is to long not like country to your country pretty fast. Then it is pretty handy if you just get your money in your pocket and pay. I would just say that they should make a lot of stores accept bitcoin.

Yes the possibility that is pretty much happening along with the risks involved.What if the store's computer has a keylogger in it ? How AM I suppose to pay in a store if my wallet is installed on my desktop ? The solution would be installing a bitcoin wallet app right ? My next question : Why should I trust an app with my bitcoins ? Hardware wallet ? Too expensive isn't it ? Until we find a most reliable way to carry bitcoins along without any risks involved,it's still a far-fetched goal yet to be reached.

It's already happening in Japan.You can buy Satori coins through an vending machine!

Paypal is old.Future is bitcoin.The day everyone ditches paypal,we'd celebrate the "Bitcoin Awareness Day"!

@Patatas, .... computer has a keylogger in it ? How AM I suppose to pay in a store if my wallet is installed on my desktop ?... what kind of question is that? you simply request his wallet ID,log into you bitcoin account from your mobile device!

Ofcourse, it's NOT safe to use third-party computer when handling deals that involve payment!


Thanks
Bitcseo

That was a cool idea but how will they be encouraged if they do know nothing about bitcoin.  Maybe you couod discuss them first the history of bitcoin and how it operates like that.  And then you could show some proofs thatnit actually works like paper money.  And then give them some stores that doing bitcoin payments.  And of course are they willing to have online transactions?  Cause it might just give them expenses because of additional computer and internet fees.

The advantages they can get. Indeed all existing stores now, it is very difficult in accepting the BTC. Because they have not come to know well about the use of the mechanism and also the bitcoin bitcoin. But the thing that can push the offline store received the btc is to inform about the advantages they can get

Surprised to see that no-one has replied to this (unless I missed it), but this really is very important if you're going to convince a business to accept Bitcoin.
If you suggest accepting Bitcoin to a business and they try it out and they don't generate enough revenue with it, than it's actually quite damaging to the image of Bitcoin and they would probably not try it again if it fails the first time.

I would suggest that if you do manage to convince a store, pub or restaurant to accept BTC, you at least go there yourself and pay with Bitcoin regularly and tell all your friends about it.
Also, go the extra mile and add that business to any website or service that lists businesses accepting Bitcoin.

Just tray to say any experienced sales people/restaurant managers, that they loose 35% potential customer if they will not accept your service, and most possible they will just smile and say goodbye.  ;D

that wont help most probably, i actually tried emailing a few cafes telling that a lot of young people are actually using bitcoins so they should accept it but i got ignored :D

Nice tips but I doubt alot of people would do this though.
Pretty sure that if they did do it then it would help, I mean store owners want money doesn't matter what kind aslong as they could convert it to their own preferance.

That was not really a good idea though.
Attempting to say to the owner of the store 'you can lose 35%-45% customers because of something' is obviously fishy enough. I doubt managers would even want to entertain that kind of start up presentation.

i think you should just call them and then email and if that does not help just repeat it over and over again

That is really a nice suggestion, with that they will be attracted more to the system we provide as they will get a free advertising , but only those offline stores will  accept that deal who will have knowledge about online business and will have good knowledge about digital system.

Personally i don't want to spend bitcoin somewhere besides online unless they offer discounts if we pay bitcoin.
But sure it good to see local stores accepts it and other cryptos as well. That means people may be dependent to the internet by that time too.

I wouldnt want a physical store to accept Bitcoin until another alternative to waiting for a confirmation comes out. Maybe when the lightning network is finished?

Your statement... (35%-45%) Where did you get those numbers?

In my country(especially in my city) most of the store owners and restaurants are less educated and they do not even like to adopt banking system for their stores and restaurants etc, so it will be workable in highly developed countries as there I can see that they accept ATM cards etc, so they will also give a place for bitcoin.

What you're saying is, you live in a city full of dumbasses. I didn't realize there was anyone from Detroit on this forum. Welcome.

I think it is fear of governments also that prevents them accepting bitcoin.How will they calculate sales and other taxes if they receive payments in bitcoin?

The best way to encourage an offline store to accept BTC is to give them some belief that they'll be getting more sales from accepting it. You have to give them either the desire to gain or the fear of loss, and in order to get them to accept some additional forms of payment you have to give them the desire to gain. As long as you can prove their sales will increase, they will more than likely be more interested.

This is going to be tough, especially when trying to convince old folks that are computer illiterate.

@QuestionAuthority, is just contribution from Bestwishes745. Although people from is location may have little or no knowledge about the use of computer & e-currency today but, that does not mean people from such area's would not embrace the use of such currency if, proper awareness are created by those of us who are into btc trading. Instead, i think Bestwishes745 need's compliment for his effort for doing what an average person will not do.  8)

Regard's
Bitcseo

"35%-45% ofyour cistomers who uses bitcoins"?This is a little bit unrealistic.

I don`t think that 35-45% of the people use bitcoins.

I don`t think that the bitcoins users use btc to buy stuff offline.

well its a good thing that you want to encourage local store to accept bitcoin, however i dont think bitcoin is ready for this thing the one that become problem is the transaction speed, which sometimes can take few hours to confirm, and there are a lot of people who doesnt know about bitcoin so its hard to implemented bitcoin system for now

Pretty nice thing to do if someone actually follows it, The bad part would be the probable embarrassment and social awkwardness if they are totally not interested, The technical part would also be difficult but I guess they could just use coinbase and have the person send the BTC at the checkout spot.

@potatopower, email's donot work. I've tried both(emailing & talking directly to store manager) so far i recieved few positive response with the second method but, all my messsages which i have sent via email where probably ignored or deleted by the store manager's.

I suggest direct talk (one-one ) with the store manager. You can fix an appointment with them.Tell them it's something that will be beneficial to their business. Do this in business manner. 8)

*Donot not give them the impression that this could be another time waster telemarketer because there are whole lot of them.Doing so will make them decline the request of meeting with you.

Regard's
Bitcseo

@davis196"
...Do you know you'll be losing 35%-45% of your customer's (tourist) who  uses bitcoins?.." it's just a marketing or promotion term to attract attention of the person. The figure of those using bitcoin offline may be less. 8)

well,thanks for that observation

Regard's
Bitcseo

thats true, one of the main reasons why people dont accept bitcoins because it is connected with computers and they dont use it even though it is really easy