Bitcoin Forum

This forum and its users have been very helpful to me as newbie learning about Bitcoins.  I have been mulling over an idea of making it possible for anyone to purchase Bitcoins at a retail location . 

The idea resolves around buying non refundable credit from a retail store. Something like Money Pak or something similar.  Unlike money Pak there would be no service charge for the purchase. Once the purchase was complete then you would go online with the code to complete your bitcoin purchases.

Questions:

1. Is there anybody or company offering the ability to purchase Bitcoin via cash transactions at  a retail store?
2. What are the advantages for offering this services?
3. What are the disadvantages for offering a service like this?
4. What would be a fair fee for offering such a services. At the present moment the service provider is charging 2% to 4% per transaction. So any fee charged would have to be on top of that fee.
5. Is it better to have your own Bitcoin client on your server or purchase bit coin as need from exchanges like Mtgox for security reasons.

1. Bitinstant.com is the most well known, but several other exchanges offer cash deposits a bank locations - notably Bitfloor. Bitinstant is the only one that can accept deposits at a retail location such as Wal-Mart.
2. Should be obvious, you can be anonymous if you want to, and it is very fast.
3. You can't sit on your ass at home and push a few buttons to make it work - you have to drive somewhere.
4. Until a competitor or 3 come along, you are stuck with the fees they charge.
5. You can do both, it depends on whether you are capable of securing your machine as well as they are theirs.

Thank you RJK for your fast response. Bitinstant.com looks like what i had in mind.

How does it work to buy bitcoin at Wall-mart? Does any Wall-mart is offering this service?

You buy USD credit via zipzap/moneygram which is orchestrated by Bitinstant. They then credit your mtgox account and you can buy bitcoins.

I don't understand a damn thing of what you said. What's the point with walmart?

The moneygram terminal is located inside walmart (and other locations such as CVS as well). Go to http://bitinstant.com and read all the details for more info.

Go to our site and select walmart as the "Pay from" then fill out the other details, it's fairly self-explanatory and you will end up with a slip you can take into walmart where you can make payment at the financial services desk.