Women's clothing and accessories, all different styles and sizes.  We sell a variety of clothes for today’s trendy women as well as several gift items for different occasions. We guarantee top of the line items at prices you can afford. 10% off for purchases using Bitcoin! |
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I think many are holding steady to see if the national chain restaurant thing is of any significance and whether the bit-pay POS system gains any traction.
You do not want to be left sitting there with cash waiting for a lower drop when Bitcoin starts getting accepted all over the place with POS merchants.
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I think I have this figured out. Bruce has a friend who owns a Chinese restaurant that said she would be interested in accepting Bitcoin. https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=printpage;topic=1788.0Most likely he has showed her the new bit-pay mobile app that makes it easy to accept Bitcoin for stores and she is probably setting it up this weekend. So...a national chain restaurant will be accepting Bitcoins. It would be like a Subway store owner putting the bit-pay app on his phone and accepting Bitcoins at his store and the story being "Subway restaurant now accepts Bitcoin!" |
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You have to get the bitcoins first. Until there's a (much) simpler way for the consumers to, as hassle-free as possible, pay using Bitcoin without actually having to have two wallets (their regular currency as well as bitcoins) credit cards will be much easier to use.
1. Open a free account at ExchangeBitcoins.com 2. Go to the deposit page, make a reservation, and print the instructions. 3. Make a cash deposit at any of thousands of bank locations nationwide. 4. Purchase some Bitcoins. A wallet stored on your phone is easy to carry. |
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The value of the currency does not matter when it is used as a medium of exchange.
Go to the store, buy a bag of chips for $2.50, it currently costs about .5 BTC. If you are worried about price fluctuations keep your money in dollars on MtGox. When you want to buy something in BTC, trade the amount you want. So now you have .5 BTC that you paid $2.50 for.
The merchant plugs $2.50 into his bit-pay app and it pops up saying you owe .5 BTC with a QR code. You scan the code and click "pay". You send .5 BTC and you are done.
The merchant then gets the $2.50 sent to him in dollars through bit-pay.
Like I said in another thread. We need a BTC debit account which makes that first part easy. Keep cash in your account and it converts it to BTC when needed.
Nothing will help money fluctuations other than wide use. Until then, other currencies will be more stable.
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I like the simplicity of the text and how it affects the merchant. Something similar for consumers would be perfect. Something like: Bitcoin is a safe to use currency that is great for paying for things online and in person. Paying with Bitcoin is easy with just a few clicks on your cell phone. No more worrying about carrying cash or credit cards, everything you need to shop is on your phone. How do I get Bitcoin? There are several companies that convert your current currency into Bitcoins. http://www.mtgox.comhttp://www.tradehill.comOr for an easy way to get Bitcoins: 1. Open a free account at ExchangeBitcoins.com 2. Go to the deposit page, make a reservation, and print the instructions. 3. Make a cash deposit at any of thousands of bank locations nationwide. 4. Purchase some Bitcoins. |
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where it later can create the same consumer easy of use as credit card payments but with lower merchant fees.
Paying in Bitcoin is easier than using a credit card. Scanning a QR code and clicking "Pay" is easier than paying with your credit card then having them print out a receipt for you to then sign, or a debit card where you swipe it and enter your PIN. And why wait? Like there are people out there with stores that need to hold off on implementing an easier payment method so that other people can work on the online aspect of Bitcoin? Do we only have 2 people working on Bitcoin that efforts cannot be spread out? Should I stop accepting Bitcoins in person and tell people that they can only pay on my website? Or do both? |
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My wife's shop now accepts Bitcoins and I am working on putting up signs saying "Bitcoin accepted here" with the possibility of doing a 10% discount which would get people curious about how to get 10% off.
The thing is, my wife is not tech savvy at all and does not understand Bitcoins. Is there a business card out there that can be given out with basic information on Bitcoins and an easy guide for people to understand how to get Bitcoins so that they can spend them at her shop?
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Ie. where somebody pays for something in local currency, it gets swapped over to BTC sent to the merchant and converted back to local currency. A bit complicated, true, but surely cheaper than Mastercard VISA fees?
Currently the price comes up as dollars just like any other transaction. You put the price into the bit-pay app on your phone and it converts it to Bitcoin with a QR code for the consumer to scan. The consumer scans the code and pays the Bitcoin amount. The Bitcoin is then sent to the merchant's bit-pay account where it can either be sent to your BTC wallet or sent to your bank account in dollars. It is your choice as a merchant. You are charged .99% to get paid in Bitcoins and 2.99% to get it out as cash. I have a very low rate on my credit card transactions because I set up my laptop to swipe cards so the per swipe fee is under 2% for VISA/MASTERCARD. American Express fees are usually 3-5%. Plus you usually have a monthly fee of around $25 for the service plus a minimum of $25 in transaction fees. Then there is the equipment. A cheap system will run about $250. A receipt printer can run from $250 to $600. With bit-pay, I set up an app for my smart phone (which I already have, otherwise it cost me $150 plus a monthly cost of $50). |
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A company that accepts Bitcoins to place adwords would be nice.
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You are too late. Easy POS payments are here and are being used. 1. Bitcoin is not meant to be used offline, in stores, not even so much on mobile devices (which would work, but not as good as on PCs). Too bad, because it is set up for mobile devices. And it does work. 2. Using bitcoin in offline locations is very problematic technically. If you go to buy lunch, they don't want to wait for 10 minutes until your transaction confirms. They don't either want to check the market price all the time and adjust their prices, which, as opposed to online shops can be printed on papers and boards. Do you reprint them all the time then?
Most of "normal" shops don't have secure enough setups anyway, and wallet stealings and such things would be a great problem if you could pay by bitcoin in every restaurant.
The only thing we will achieve by accepting bitcoins offline is people starting to believe that bitcoin is slow, unsecure and plain pain in the ass. Which it is, when used offline! A couple of seconds is not a long wait. I can do a Bitcoin transaction at my wife's shop faster than running a credit card. And get confirmation by the time I put the clothes in the bag. 3. There is no inherent *reason* to use bitcoin offline. Are you trying to achieve anonymity when paying for your lunch? Pay with cash, much easier. Transaction fees? Pay with cash. Or maybe are you trying to eat lunch in a restaurant that's on the other side of the globe? Well then you've got bigger problems  So while by promoting bitcoin online we are actually making the world better and simpler, by promoting it in offline stores, we are just doing so because "bitcoin is cool". The *reason* is that it is easier than cash. Everyone carries their phone. No running to the ATM, no counting out your cash, no worry about getting robbed (most smart phones have code security for accessing the phone) POS transactions are here, they are easy and simple for merchants to set up and use. No changing of prices, the price is calculated in Bitcoins simply through the bit-pay.com app. My wife's shop accepts them and I will be helping other stores in her strip get set up (a convenience/sandwich store and a tire shop) They can even get paid in cash and never need to know anything about Bitcoins. |
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A monopoly cannot exist without government intervention.
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Are you aware of the script capabilities in bitcoin? They will enable transactions of the sort that require say 3 out of 5 signature to spend funds. This is exactly what is needed in a corporate accounting context. This same capability can also be used for multi-factor authentication to protect high value wallets. I believe Gavin and other core developers are doing work to enable these capabilities as we speak.
I have not heard of this. I will definitely look into it. Sounds like just what is needed to bring Bitcoin to the big time. |
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Just take whatever stock you have and sell it on e-bay.
If nobody on e-bay will buy it then you have something that nobody wants.
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Have you called Obama to help you?
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While I would hope that this would be true, I do not believe that Bitcoin is yet ready for POS acceptance outside of mom and pop shops with current services.
...
Having worked POS development and support for a 2000 location corporation, I can tell you that Bitcoin can be made simple and employee idiot proof (and theft-proof too, since it is the customer creating the transfer and not the retailer). Unless they are using old-fashioned phone line machines, the company headquarters will already have data lines up to locations for POS credit card transactions which are processed through their custom terminals and datacenters, and the datacenter has high speed links to the backend servers for credit card companies. It's not much to add another payment option to software-driven terminals. I'm sure people here have used credit cards at Starbucks for example - with a card swipe you are through in 10 seconds. The company would begin a transaction by creating a unique address and expected BTC payment in it's database, and push that to the POS and customer (with a 2D barcode on receipt or a POS display for mobile phone, etc). The transaction would be closed or finalized when the payment address gets its bitcoins, and an "all clear"/processed signal can be returned to the register. The database backend can use heuristics to determine risk in taking a 0 confirmation transaction, such as the transaction being distributed to a majority of nodes, an adequate fee to ensure inclusion, and balance and sending history on that address that might indicate a double-spend attempt. Considering that retailers have to eat credit card fees, and losses from stolen and disputed payments, etc, a non-reversible free bitcoin payment is like a godsend. The only big hurdle for Bitcoin at the POS is you have to wait for some confirmations for 100% fraud-proof money. One thing in a retail environment, customers need to know how much the purchase cost is in BTC before making the purchase. To that effect, we need not a more stable exchange price, but retailers that are willing to set a long-term BTC price instead of simply looking up the current exchange rate. If customers know that 1 BTC is always worth a hamburger, expanded retail presence can actually stabilize BTC exchange rates. All of this has been solved and is working with https://bit-pay.com/aboutMobile.htmlWhat I am talking about is on the accounting end. When there is one person who controls the business account and checks and accounting then it is an easy transition to a Bitcoin wallet. But with a corporation with accounting staff or off-site accounting services with many people in charge of small bits of purchasing and making deposits/withdrawals it makes things more complicated. Not that Bitcoin cannot be adapted to such an environment, but that we do not currently right now today have tools that deal with this type of environment. We just are not at that point yet. In my opinion. |
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You should do like every other successful American company and buy Chinese goods and sell them at a mark-up. I have done a small amount of selling of chinese gadgets dipping my toes in the water through drop shipping. Drop shipping allows you to offer products at a marked up price without even buying the product or needing to store them. Here is one item I used to sell: http://www.chinavasion.com/product_info.php/pName/spy-pen-pinhole-video-camera-motion-detection-micro-sd/A Spy Pen with a video camera. The thing costs $28 wholesale, plus probably around $12 shipping from China. You charge $45 for it and get a $5 profit. The work you put into it is putting it on your page and then when the purchase comes through you fill out the form and address of where it is shipped. Here is someone selling this thing on ebay for $46: http://www.ebay.com/itm/Spy-Pen-Pinhole-Video-Camera-Motion-Detection-Micro-Sd-/180534553293?pt=Camcorders_Professional_Video_Cameras&hash=item2a08b2aacd#ht_5167wt_1396The downside to it is that the products are Chinese made which makes them fairly susceptible to being dead on arrival or of low quality. Plus the shipping can take up to a month, you need to let people know that the product will take 3-4 weeks to arrive. Also, you are in competition with many other people who have access to the same product (if they are more successful, buying a lot of product the wholesaler gives them a lower price and they can offer the product cheaper). The upside is you make money with little overhead and no upfront cost. |
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I have searched for debit cards before because I wanted to be able to drop my credit and debit cards and have an easy way to budget out my spending for the month.
What I found were a huge amount of fees. Fees such as $9.95 activation fee, $4.95 per month fee, a non-activity fee, 50 cents per purchase, one company requires a $99 activation fee.
A good service to compete with this may be a debit account that can be used to pay for things in Bitcoins. There would still need to be a fee for converting your dollars to Bitcoins, but the debit company can get the fees down to around .25% per transaction with high volume on MtGox which would come out to a fee of 25 cents per $100 spent.
So you could set up your debit account, keep your cash in there for spending. When you go to buy something in Bitcoins it converts cash at the current rate into Bitcoins and pays for the product.
So where is the profit for the company? You have a bunch of cash from customers, you put that in an account and collect interest or do the fiat thing and make money the same way that banks make money on deposited money. You might even be able to lower the .25% per transaction cost for those who have higher balances or even just do a (no transaction fee for accounts with more than $500). So there would be no fee.
Just a thought. I know that this actually is counter to what Bitcoin is all about because we want to encourage people to convert their currency to BTC and use it, but this would be providing a cheaper service than banks can offer and encourage Bitcoin merchants to be set up.
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While I would hope that this would be true, I do not believe that Bitcoin is yet ready for POS acceptance outside of mom and pop shops with current services.
A mom and pop place tends to have the owners running the shop or running all of the accounting and books. This means that they have full control over the Bitcoin wallet.
A more corporate environment will have accountants that cut checks to pay for various things, with reports etc on spending. But an accountant with the Bitcoin wallet can
just as easily copy the wallet and take it home, then at any point just transfer all of the money out of it with no trace. Then claim that it was hacked, or that some other
employee must have had access to it.
Not to say that Bitcoin could not survive in such an environment. I just do not believe that at this time the tools are available for such an environment.
We have gotten to the point where it is very feasible for all mom and pop shops to easily accept Bitcoins as a POS service through bit-pay. All they need is an iPhone or Android. That is big enough news and will move Bitcoin forward dramatically.
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