Bitcoin Forum

amazon's payment processing fees cost them 3 billion per year  (btc marketcap size lol) why don't they accept bitcoin? they could save a lot of money not to mention that they will get a lot of new customers


does anyone know where i can buy an iphone 4 (new) with bitcoin?

re iphone: checkout overstock.com, tigerdirect.com, newegg.com if in US. i bought new samsung galaxy at overstock once they started accepting btc a while ago

They are in bed with PayPal and more people currently use PayPal than BTC. So PayPal will have leverage with them to not accept BTC.

The credit card companies also have a stake in that, so they will also influence their decision.

These companies have a lot to loose, if Amazon add BTC as a payment method. At some stage, people will see the benefits of using BTC and they will naturally move to companies who accept it. {Overstock}

When Amazon starts to loose business because of that, they will have to change their partnership with credit card companies and PayPal.

Be thankful they don't. While adoption is needed in the long run, right now we need less avenues for holders to sell their Bitcoins.

Because they want not waste their time and money for bitcoin ::) if more people use btc, maybe they will accept bitcoin too. Im sure they know bitcoin and they love it :D

A lot of big businesses are more reliant than you might think on the counterfeiting cartel. 

Though it's easy to say, given the size of their business they need to consider all the risks involved before they provide bitcoin options. I'm sure this is in the pipeline but all these take time. We need to ensure bitcoin adoption become widespread before consider such request. A small 1 - 2 per 10 transactions may not be enough to start convince them.

Agree and this might be the reason. Dont worry, you can buy Amazon giftcard at purse.io or gyft.com.

Because the price of bitcoin is not stable.

I found it weird too . but I guess this is what is happening : Since Amazon bought Twitch.tv and integrated Bitcoin on it .. they are probably doing tests and see how much people are using Bitcoin on Twitch , if they see a good amount of people they may added it to Amazon too . in the other hand they made Amazon coin or whatever the name is , not sure if it works same as Bitcoin tho

~ Madness

because its a waste of their time and effort, people hoard or trade bitecoin but few if any actually use it as a currency.

On a recent flight ticket purchase with BalticAir I was offered to pay with Bitcoins or Visa/Mastercard. Bitcoin had a fee of 0 while Visa/Mastercard had an additional fee of 5.99€.
I paid so I can pay. I wish I had enough bitcoins to get the ticket.

Don't buy giftcards over purse.io. I lost money doing that, since Amazon can just invalidate them, without giving you a reason(since you are not the buyer of the giftcard)

Amazon doesn't accept payments from PayPal, only credit cards.

Those are not consider giftcard then.. It is also why I buy giftcards from gyft two times and not purse.ipurse.io.

So did they allow you to pay with bitcoins?
If you didn't had enough to pay for the ticket , why did you ask if they accept it in the first place ?

How are these not gift cards?
I talk about this things:
http://www.amazon.com/Amazon-com-Black-Gift-Card-Box/dp/B008EN462I/ref=sr_1_1?s=gift-cards&ie=UTF8&qid=1424083244&sr=1-1

What do you get at gyft?

Amazon uses PayPal as it is their most favorite and reliable option while they also accept Credit cards. They might be finding it better to use PayPal instead of using bitcoins. I guess in future, they may chose it as a payment option.

I didn't ask, it was one of the payment options!
And unfortunately I didn't have enough coins to pay my ticket. And since time was short, I didn't have a chance to exchange etc.

Accepting it will give more abuse to their service and people will SE it easily

Wow! that is cool

It is the first time I noticed that a website uses bitcoin as a payment option and that too for booking flights. This is great that the websites have started making bitcoins a payment option.

my take on why established businesses will never accept bitcoin:


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h_fS4C7Cot8

because they have to pay their taxes and their "raw materials" in FIAT and are highly regulated. Bitcoin is designed for "private business use"

It was the first time for me too that I saw a large/flight company offering this option. Although I think some friends of mine said that they had this option before too. Nevertheless, I was positively surprised. :)

The next time I have to fly, I will make sure in advance that I have enough coins to avoid stupidly paying 6€. ((offtopic: Seriously, I see a ticket for 100€ and by the time I get to the payment window I'm paying almost 150€ for all kinds of "extra" fees.))

because BTC is not stable it can cost them huge loss or even huge profit in daily basis i bealive once betcoins will stable it self most of the websites will start using it and for the iphonr search in google

This is not a valid argument not to accept Bitcoin.

There are plenty of Bitcoin payment processors, through which companies like Amazon can very easily accept Bitcoin, yet they receive their sales directly in EUR or USD (the payment processor converts it to fiat). In fact they never even have to deal with or own any bitcoins at any point, nor are they exposed to any volatility risk. Company charges €50, customer pays in Bitcoin, company receives exactly €50. Period. No fees, no delay, no volatility, no chargeback risk, no restrictions or limitations (unlike any other payment method, Bitcoin is available worldwide), no nothing.

They use product pricing in euros, they receive euros, they pay tax in euros, done. In this sense, they're just using Bitcoin as a more efficient, faster, safer, better, and cheaper payment method (compared to credit cards, paypal, etc) rather than an actual currency, but that's fine.

So, what are they waiting for?

Same here: Bitcoin payment processors (which are 100% free, by the way) easily solve this.

Again: business can already accept Bitcoin RIGHT NOW, with ZERO cost, and ZERO risk.

Microsoft is the second largest company on Earth and they take BTC.  ???

yet bitcoin adoption is growing at a very slow pace because there is a need for shops that people uses regularly everyday to accept bitcoin, for example a food company like tesco in the UK or walmart in the US or amazon / ebay etc...

microsoft is a big company but their product are designed for only a small % of the population

You can try coinsfortech for a new iphone 4

we're not there yet since the user base is so small. 
also why my local pizzaria has no interest in accepting btc. 
i would be their only btc customer.
one day i will buy my mama's pizza with btc.

They take BTC ?
when ? where?

Very valid argument indeed. This just strengthen my argumant that they are in collusion with their current payment operators.

I just cannot see why a company would want to use a payment option, where the customer has to pay a premium fee to get their transactions processed. The saving puts more money back in the company and the customers pocket.

It makes me think about the UK example where the BIG food companies, influenced government to outvote the suggestion to put color coded food indicators on packaging. {Those companies have no concern about the health risk involved in what people eat, they just worried about the financial loss and even pitched a possible job loss to government to increase their chances, not to get the bill passed}

What we learn from this is... decisions are not made, with the consumers interest in mind... it's all about the money and what they might gain or loose.  >:( >:( >:(

http://www.coindesk.com/microsoft-adds-bitcoin-payments-xbox-games-mobile-content/

So no business will ever accept bitcoin?

Really...?


Really???

http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-1s_LEYGX6H0/U42CpbqzBMI/AAAAAAAADs0/I8MqWHp2f1g/s1600/oh-really-3.png

btw, had a great meal in a Milan pizza place this weekend. Paid for with bitcoin.
Paid for the plane ticket to Milan...bitcoin.
Car parking at the airport...bitcoin.
Tour of the Last Supper....bitcoin.

Hotel? Yep, you guessed it. Bitcoin.


As for Amazon...I use bitcoin to purchase things on there all the time. It's nicer to save 10-30% for each purchase though so who cares if they don't accept it?

It's about risk I guess, big companies running with the big money,Bitcoin is still a unstable currency that could make their assets shrinked even with the 1% fall of the Bitcoin value.

I suppose what you mean here is something similar like what bitpay has to offer. I'm just wondering since they act as intermediate party who absorbs all the risk on behalf of the merchant using their service, then how do they make money based on their business plan? I supposed there must a fee involved or the additional fee is passed on to the customer. Since the merchant here sells 1usd gets 1usd so the variable here must be the btc selling price customer has to pay for the product.

You traveling through Europe? As a Bitcoin fan, you can't miss Arnhem (http://www.ArnhemBitcoinstad.nl) (Netherlands), Bitcoin Captical of the world! If you go there, drop us a note, and we'll have a beer.. paid with- you know :)

No, no, NO. Companies don't have to expose themselves to this risk AT ALL.

Let me repeat myself:

Bitpay doesn't absorb any risk. They check the orderbook and sell immediately. Whatever little fluctuation that can happen is averaged out.

I currently work in Germany but am making sure I visit one new place each month at least while I'm here. I've been to Amsterdam and enjoyed the Netherlands, I would definitely like to visit Arnhem at some point.

The risk is on currency fluctuation. If amazon accepts bitcoin directly, exchanging back to fiat has to be done by themselves so they are exposed to the risk. Since bitpay undertakes it on behalf of amazon, the risk of currency fluctuation is transferred to bitpay. Since bitpay offers such service, in which part do they earn their money from?

We all know the benefits of bitcoin but it doesn't look like the corporations do.


http://coinsfortech.com/product-category/mobile-phones/apple-phones/ or ask on the Goods section in the Marketplace here.




Really? Last time I checked Amazon didn't even accept paypal.



That's what payment processors are for. Amazon could also just build their own system that exchanges the coins on an exchange for them.

Dell, Expedia, Microsoft, and Time, Inc. don’t actually “accept” bitcoins, per se. They accept U.S. dollars. It’s their bitcoin processing partners who accept bitcoin. They, in turn, make money on transaction fees (in the case of Coinbase), or by selling their software and services as a subscription (in the case of BitPay).

BitPay, which has partnered with Microsoft, Newegg, and other merchants, confirmed to MONEY that the majority of its major clients ask that their bitcoins be instantly converted to cash. “I would say as a general trend most of our larger business do choose a settlement in 100% U.S. dollars because that’s how they do their accounting and finance,” said Tony Gallippi, co-founder and executive chairman of BitPay.


http://time.com/money/3658361/dell-microsoft-expedia-bitcoin/

Btc is more like a share,
And moreover there is no one who is handling its economy and prices chnge evry day!

Amazon most certainly do no accept Paypal, very likely because of the high fees they charge and how easy it is to get your money back from them. They have no excuse to not accept bitcoin IMO.


Semantics. They still accept bitcoins in exchnage for goods/services regardless of payment processors. If someone accepts bitcoins but immediately exchanges them to fiat they still accept bitcoin.

Cool! Just in case, you may be aware of CoinFest taking place this Friday (February 20), an initiative to have Bitcoin-oriented meetups in cities all over the world. Of course, we're participating in Arnhem as well. See the meetup event (http://www.meetup.com/cryptogeld/events/220055995/) if you want to check it out.

Whether be it this Friday or another time, you'll definitely enjoy spending some bitcoins here! As it happens, last week there was German couple spending two days in Arnhem on bitcoins alone (of course including hotel, dinner, shopping, etc). They had a great time :)

They use Bitcoin mainly as a payment system, rather than using it as an actual currency. Doesn't matter, makes perfect sense from their perspective, and it's just a matter of time before larger companies will actually take Bitcoin directly.

It's sometimes not feasible for big companies.

And it's sometimes not useful to small local businesses.

Why not? If Overstock can implement btc why can't Amazon? If my local coffeeshop can accept btc why not any other small business. Accepting bitcoin is simple and easy and you can either choose to keep the bitcoins yourself and hold or exchange when you wish or use a payment processor to exchange for cash. No business should have these excuses.

Exactly how is accepting Bitcoin 'not feasible' for big companies? There is literally no single payment system on the planet that is safer, cheaper, faster and easier to implement than Bitcoin.

Tell that to the 50+ local businesses here in Arnhem (http://www.arnhembitcoinstad.nl/) (The Netherlands) that accept Bitcoin. I'm talking physical, point of sale, brick and mortar businesses here. Sure, the Bitcoin consumption volume isn't huge yet, but publicity, promotion, and attracting tourists and new customers all for free never hurts any business. And I mean 'all for free' as in, they don't have to invest anything (unliky any other payment method they're accepting).

The question on whether it is feasible or useful depends on how you decide to implement it. If currency fluctuation is a main concern, payment processor will be able to help. Most businesses i believe are just basically using the wait and see approach to learn on how the others are doing. Like Microsoft for example are still testing the water using a small portion of their business.

Exactly, slowly but surely big businesses are making the switch. Meanwhile, small to medium size businesses like mine have been accepting since the early days  ;D

Sure. We will be growing for years still. But it is easier than ever for me to find what I want in BTC. And actually, some Ebay retailers do take bitcoin.


I disagree. I set up bitcoin for businesses and they are shocked at how easy it is. There is zero barrier to entry and it is free to use. Using a service like bitpay the business faces no market volitility and in fact companies big and small make about 3% more in profit than if the customer uses a credit card. There is NO downside, no risk. All you have to do is say "we take bitcoin".

I would disagree with this. If more merchants were to accept bitcoin then people who are not already involved (and own) in bitcoin would get involved and buy bitcoin which in turn would drive prices up

As it is now the holding of bitcoin are very concentrated which in itself makes people not want to buy it because so many people could potentially crash the price.

Innovation mostly comes from small businesses. Big businesses already have their user bases and every big change is just a risk for them to lose their users.

Microsoft and Paypal arent big? lol
most are waiting for each other to do the first step.

amazon doesnt accept btc because they're stupid

How do Bitpay handle the BTC volitility? It could be that the competitor payment processors are using the BTC volitility as leverage to discourage companies to accept BTC

Most people do not even know about Bitpay and with all the negativity surrounding BTC, people could easily be convinced that volitility is too big a barrier to accept BTC as a payment option.

Can Bitpay handle the volume of transactions coming from a big company like Amazon? {If you add it to what they currently have on their books}

Last I have seen, they posted that the biggest single transactions they processed, was for $ 1 000 000... but that was a while ago, things might have grown since.