Bitcoin Forum

I almost ready to open a small general store and I have been going back and forth with myself on rather its of more importance to make the store exclusively for Bitcoin, include the local currency as well as BTC, or if it makes a difference one way or other? Thoughts? Experiences? Suggestions?

It is not harmful to bitcoin, on the contrary, the more stuff available to be bought with bitcoin the better, but it will be harmful to the seller restricting payment methods like that, specially only allowing what can be considered a barely adopted payment method.

If you want to sell online, and be successful, you need at least accept Paypal and credit cards, depending on where you're selling to, you may also want to take a look at the most used payment methods in that location.

You might attract enough devotees to keep you buoyant, at the same time you're going to turn off the vast majority of humanity right now. It might just equal out.

How will you be sourcing stock? Are there any suppliers who'll accept BTC?

If you are thinking about opening a brick and mortar store you would be making a huge mistake not excepting fiat currency. I believe you could do quite well accepting only Bitcoin on a E-commerce site depending on the products you are offering but you will always do better offering the customer multiple ways to pay.

It is recommendable that you want to promote bitcoin by opening a bitcoin exclusive store. If you want to make money, you have to accept the most common payment methods. I think it may be better for bitcoin if you promote bitcoin awareness to your fiat customers.

I wonder... if you put BTC price tags on everything and prohibited returns, but fixed the exchange rate at your store to somewhere above market like $1250 USD/BTC. So if people wanted to pay fiat for an item you price at BTC0.5 (that you bought wholesale for the equivalent of BTC0.25 at $240 USD/BTC), they'd have to pay $625 USD.

I like this idea tho the spikes and falls of BTC against local fiat currencies, currently, does not allow for fixed pricing.

I think it's best if you include both, but do advertise that you accept BTC and if it is possible offer people discounts if they purchase using BTC, this way you'll encourage people to use bitcoins and it might help in bitcoin adoption a little more for people who don't know of it might try to find out about it to avail some discounts.

I think it's helpful.

If we are to see the project grow we need to be committed to only operating in bitcoin. If goods or services are offered in bitcoin and fiat buyers will use which ever currency is easiest. There's no incentive to us bitcoin if no one ever has to, right?

in theory it should force people to use bitcoin more, if you store has something that they want, otherwise better to leaves the other payments option or your income would suffer

one thing you could do, is offering some kind of bonus if someone pay in bitcoin, this should incentivate more its use, without cutting too much your earning and without escluding a big clientele

Yes, it is good for increasing bitcoin's awareness in your local area. But you want to open bitcoin payment exclusive store, it depends on what products or services you are selling! Is it relating with bitcoin or altcoins? Then you can open such kind of store! If not, you'd better provide the usual payment methods as other stores, otherwise you will be out of business!

It's likely more helpful to support multiple payment providers than one exclusively, while it is possible to develop a niche having a larger cut of the market would result in more people going to your site and being aware of Bitcoin.
That said in part it also depends on what products you decide to offer whether it makes sense to just use Bitcoin to save costs or add on additional options.

I think its best if you include the most used payments on your website with the means of promoting and making Bitcoin payment your main payment but still to be able to use other payments so anyone could buy from your store

Better to use local payment and btc payment. And for the price I think use local price, not btc price, why? because bitcoin price movement.

BTC is still too small and niche to make a business go BTC only, unless you know that your audience knows BTC. If you have a local coffee shop in the middle of somewhere you'll never encounter anyone that uses BTC. If you make it near a trendy, modern city, you'll have more chances at finding a good BTC public.
If you have an online store, it's way easier to accept BTC only and get profits, but you need to study the demographics of your location if the shop is going to be physical.

Giving discounts to ppl using BTC makes sense in several ways: it not only helps BTC adaptation, BTC also has a much lower fee than traditional bankcards, paypal,... Only cash has a lower fee (depending on which bank you use, and how far you're located from your banks office), but less and less people actually use cash anyways...

I don't see why you would want to offer your products in BTC only, having more payment options is always better. If you want to promote Bitcoin just make sure you have the 'Bitcoin accepted here' banner clearly visible. USD is one of the most widely used currency in the world and it's not going anywhere anytime soon, if you're running a business, it would be silly to not accept it.

From a business perspective I don't think it's good to only offer bitcoin payments but that's up to you. I'd create a store and accept as many payments options as I could including bitcoin. You would then get more customers from both sides as bitcoiners would chose your store over others because they could use their coins as opposed to the many stores where they cant and are forced to use their cash alternatives.

It is helpful for a certain part of the bitcoin community to offer their products and services only in exchange of btc but it is not so helpful for other people who do not deal in btc as they cannot complete transactions and payments through btc. It has its pros and cons i guess

I dont think it is harmful but at the same time i don't think it is useful.
On today's economy not everybody has bitcoin. So it will be less used in one way or other.

Where you want to open a small general store, do you have consumers who has knowledge about bitcoins, there is no doubt that bitcoins has extreme value at its own and it has a very great future, however since you are going to start a new venture, start with local currency first, once you earned the decent profit from the business then from that profit, invest some on the bitcoins or include bitcoins in your venture transactions.

This is pretty much unneeded because accepting BTC doesnt mean that your business intended to target only BTC user as some people might be interested to know more about BTC the moment they see a business only accepts it as a payment form. Some people might be enthusiast enough to learn about it but it depends on what is your target customer. If your target is a 50 year old grandpa than I'd assume it will be a bad business but if it is a young teens and such then it could be a good idea.

In fact it may not be harmful to offer BTC only as a payment method but it will not be as successful as accepting both FIAT and BTC as a payment . Accepting both could be much usefull and that wont prevent people from stopping and turn away the moment they saw that it accepts BTC only

Its good the more people are involved and get know to btc it will be good. Here you have services that provide payment in btc not in cash (was it dollar or euro or any other currency). So this can not be harmful only good for community.

Obviously, you should accept both local currency and BTC.

My advise would be to accept all kinds of payments including hard cash and also bitcoin, do not deprive someone of buying their daily needs just because they do not have any bitcoins. Although it is a very wise idea for you to start a grocery store which only offers products in exchange of bitcoins but I am very unsure if you would be making money right away. Maybe have recharge cards which hold btc value and have a recharge money which recharges their cards and puts btc in it in exchange of cash. You will be converting currency on the side too. How awesome is that?!

That's a really awesome idea, if all stores start using this sytem  then maybe it really helps btcto grow and all the shops using this service also get extra money for exchanging and promoting bitcoin and they can benefit from that. All shopping malls, amusement rides, food chains could sue this system to load btc into the card in exchange of fiat and then the card can be used to spend the btc and returned when the purchasing has been finished. AWESOME IDEA.

It is too early to open a small grocery or general stores and sell the things in Bitcoin currency, still so many people unaware of the Bitcoin digital currency, even they do not know how much the exchange rates, besides that have you ever thought about fluctuation in the currency value of Bitcoin.

Just hypothetical, wouldn't BTC fluctuate less and less when more and more businesses accept it as a viable payment method?

Ofcourse why not, that is why I mentioned there, it is too early to start such that at present condition, definitely in a years down the line Bitcoin will be in very stable condition as more and more businesses accept it as a payment methods, However till that moment, he can start implementing bitcoin gradually, but definitely not instantly.

The part in bold it will be my choice. If you choose only one from the two currencies you will lose the buyers of the other currency. So have no sense doing the choice of one currency. This it would be my advice. But you must think and decide only by yourself. Only you know the market of your country and only you know the conditions that must be fulfilled that you have the maximum of profits.

I think another merchant accepting bitcoin can't hurt the bitcoin economy. That said, it will make a difference what you do with bitcoin when you receive it. If you immediately convert to fiat, I don't think this really helps the bitcoin community; at best it's neutral. On the the other hand, I'd be skeptical that a bitcoin only merchant could possibly do enough business to stay afloat. Your best bet to help you and potentially help the bitcoin community would be to accept all forms of payment, including bitcoin.

- Why do you mine bitcoin? 
- To use it to buy miners
- Why do you buy miners? 
- To mine bitcoin

As far as how having products denominated in BTC will effect it:

Certainly this will make BTC more valuable as it become more useful as a means of payment. In fact, if you were able to and want to be part of something that really creates value, try to find a way to also buy what you need for your business in BTC. This way you will create a sort of closed loop, decreasing the supply of BTC on the market (as you won't have to sell it) and increasing demand as your BTC-denominated sales grow.

As far as running a profitable business:

You definitely need to prominently advertise that you accept fiat to attract the vast majority of customers. The customer base for BTC-denominated purchases is just too small to run a profitable business around.

I don't think it's harmful, but if product/service being offered is in a Country where Bitcoin is not yet accepted, this will affect the sale of the product or service being offered since there is not much customer or client who will buy the product or take the service.

It's not harmful. You may force people to convert their fiats into bitcoin to avail your service or to buy your products. In this case your strongly supporting bitcoin to go higher than fiats. As long as bitcoin find more usage than fiat, that are all favorable situations to bitcoin.

If the bitcoin is not accepted that's mean that bitcoin is banned from that country. At least in this way I understand this expression. Maybe I'm wrong. But if banned it will be not possible to offer any kind of service or good in bitcoin.

If you want to open your business don't bet on  bitcoin alone. You will limit yourself by doing that.
Bitcoin is not that popular and well known among people as we may think. Open your shop and include Bitcoin as one of the payment methods.
You can try to offer some promotions for people who want to purchase with bitcoin, that's all.

Yes, that would help a lot; please do it. Well, that unless you want to sell drugs or porn, but BTC badly needs regular stores accepting it. It's a great way to raise BTC awareness. And make sure to register your store in all BTC directories.

In my view, it won't be harmful for bitcoin, as it provides more buisness for bitcoin, even marginally, but it will be harmful for the seller, as he will find trouble finding someone with bitcoin/wanting to spend their bitcoin

Virtually all merchants who accept bitcoin immediately convert to fiat through a payment processor, so they're never actually receiving the bitcoin, just offering it as a payment option.

This is true, but in the case of OP, the question is whether or not to only offer BTC as a payment method. In this case, it is unlikely that the store owner is going to convert their BTC to a local currency right away, since they would also accept said local currency in addition to Bitcoin.

Either way, in this case, it certainly is harmful. Bitcoin users are an extremely small minority, and I highly doubt that any mainstream business could survive through exclusive acceptance of Bitcoin.

Ah, good point. I can't imagine anyone being able to run a physical storefront accepting only bitcoin either. Even a virtual store space would be difficult to run on only bitcoin. It would be a fine compliment, but I agree with you.

I am not really sure about this, but are you legally allowed to refuse fiat?
Fiat is legal tender and not accepting it in a store might get you into trouble, depending on the jurisdiction involved.

It would benefit bitcoin, yes, but it would limit the merchant's profitability by turning off the rest of other people who still want to transact with fiat. Also bear in mind that in order to run a business, you need to pay things with fiat, and a utility or power service provider that accepts bitcoin for utilizing their service doesn't exist yet.

I do not think there is any legal issue when we refuse to accept fiats. It may be up to you, if you have wide range of payment acceptance, you may get more business than you stick with only one payment system.

Are you sure about this? There may be some legal aspects of refusing to accept legal tender.
http://www.treasury.gov/resource-center/faqs/Currency/Pages/legal-tender.aspx

What a narrow view on Bitcoin :)

i think that its helpful for bitcoin for sure, doing that helps to rise the price as more and more people are getting more interested in bitcoins

Well it might be illegal in the US, but I don't think it's illegal in Europe. For example, Satoshi Labs, the people that are making Trezor, are offering to sell Trezor just in bitcoins and they are based in Czech Republic, in the EU.

To add, I think that the best way to earn bitcoins is to offer services or sell goods and get paid in bitcoins. This can only benefit the Bitcoin economy.

I am not sure about Satoshi labs, but this is what I could get on the internet.

http://ec.europa.eu/economy_finance/euro/cash/legal_tender/index_en.htm

Within the euro area, only the euro has the status of legal tender. This mean that in the absence of an agreement of the means of payment, the creditor of a payment obligation is obliged to accept a payment made in euro which subsequently discharges the debtor from his payment obligation. Yet, contractual parties are free to agree to use in transactions other official foreign currencies with legal tender status in the state of issuance, e.g. the Pound Sterling or the US Dollar. The same applies to privately issued money like local exchange trading systems (e.g. voucher-based payment systems in certain communities) or virtual currency schemes (e.g. Bitcoin).


The Q&A which follows this has an interesting point

Can a retailer refuse payments in cash at all times?
- Payments in cash should be the accepted rule. This should only be refused because of the 'good faith' principle - for example, if the retailer does not have enough change

From what I understand, Satoshi Labs might not have the option to refuse to accept Euro.

If your store offers something unique that can not be easily found somewhere else, it will promote the use of bitcoin.

If there are other stores that sell the same or similar products, it will just move most of your customers to your competitors.

Well, decision is on you - either you will sale only in BTC or also in some other ways  ;) It would be very hard to say which decision is the best, if the store is making sales with goods from BTC world, you can try BTC  ;)

this is only up to you also if you country dont allow this that is something else personally think that you do this and accept something else too beside btc

In my opinion, it won't be that harmful to bitcoin instead it will be more helpful to the bitcoin market and also to raise popularity of bitcoin. I think if you are opening a small general store, it would be better if you accept your local currency and bitcoin as well as a payment option.

I think, for BTC - this is helpful  ;) Products/services can be offered only in BTC, that's mean more people are using BTC  ;D

Why not both. Accepting fiat and at the same time bitcoin is a value-added attraction especially for bitcoiners like myself. Perhaps it can change one day when bitcoin adoption has gone mainstream and suddenly you will find that there will be less and less people paying in fiat, so it might be a good idea to even set up an automatic terminal for bitcoin payment. That is how I would do it.

Simply put there's not enough users out there to make a business profitable going in 100% Bitcoin only, but make no mistake, whoever pulls it off, and does it correctly and manages to establish themselves as leaders in a niche and only using Bitocoin, will be considered pioneers in a couple of years, so there's a risk-reward to be made there.

i believe its helpful as more people would consider on using bitcoins to shop and thus the popularity of bitcoin would grow a lot

The more payment method you have the more interest you get.
You should implement as much as you can afford for you store.
Being limited only to bitcoin can make people not much interested.
It is helpful for bitcoin users but harmful for the rest of potential clients.

you could offer a discount for People paying with btc

another option,  if you want support an altcoin is to sell with this altcoin only
aim : Increase altcoin's volume

but you have to sell something with high demand

it is a very good idea like this you will create awareness of bitcoin , at the same time give some discounts if they do payment through bitcoin, like this more people will go for bitcoin and like this they will come to know about bitcoin.

It is highly dependent on the nature of the product/service; some way believe it is a far more convenient method of paying for normal goods although with the negative publicity of bitcoin with services like slik road etc. it only embeds fear into the unsuspecting public mind

Forcing to buy only with bitcoin may create awareness of bitcoin but mostly people will start to hate if they find any disadvantages in getting bitcoin to spend. Instead of bitcoin buying must posses some discount to attract a user to spend with bitcoin like most of the credits cards are doing.

I would definitely offer other methods of payment together with Bitcoin.
Like other people have mentioned, you could offer a promo for Bitcoin payments.

Using local payment for traditional business I think is still preferred.

You never know on the price of bitcoin will fall or rise.. so taking traditional method will be safer.

Positive for bitcoin but idk in the merchant's end. Obviously there would still be people wanting to pay for fiat or cc and not bitcoin, so I don't think it will be a viable move in the current times. Also take into consideration some other expenses that cannot be paid with bitcoins such as power, rent and utility bills. Overall, not a smart move for the merchant.

Offering only Bitcoin payments is a bad idea unless you have a consumer-target that is Bitcoin-friendly. Better is to offer the both but with a lower pricing when you pay in Bitcoin so people will have an incentive using it.

If price fluctuations are your only concern, you can use a payment processor like Bitpay.
That way, you can lock in the fiat value of your transaction.