So back to square one it looks like.
The Bitcoin community is much larger than it was over a year ago when you were first a BItcoin-accepting merchant. You might find the additional sales volume we could bring to you to be worth your while. There are a couple vendors of tea, but there is definitely room for more merchants in this category.
Here's a low-risk option. Sell your gift card through BitMit.net. It is kind of like an eBay for bitcoin and it has Buy Now, so you can set the price you wish to sell at. You can even set the price in USDs, and mark a checkbox so that it will adjust the BTC price relative to the exchange rate.
Here's an example of an electronic gift card ecode that can be purchased through BitMit.
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http://www.bitmit.net/en/trade/i/2846-100-at-t-gophone-prepaid-wireless-refill-card/descriptionHere's something else you might wish to consider. This is bleeding edge, but maybe consider it.
From the proceeds of your sales which were paid using bitcoins, you could turn around and sell the bitcoins to your customers.
After you've accumulated enough you print and load a few of these notes, put them in sealed envelopes, and put them in the til. (Note, however, that project is still under development so a site that prints them similar to
http://www.BitAddress.org is not yet functional).
Your only requirement might be that the buyer redeems them to their mobile or tablet before leaving the store so that there is no chance that the coins were redeemed by someone else (since these are bearer codes, once they leave your store you really wouldn't want to guarantee anything)
There are no other sellers yet in your city, so you might find buyers:
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https://localbitcoins.com/location/nm/albuquerque/If there is any demand for them, you could have a graphic designer take that SVG and change the design with your own brand.
Or instead of printing your own note, you could resell a physical bitcoin from someone else:
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http://www.Casascius.comor one of the several which have been described but haven't yet been produced:
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http://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=87441.0 -
http://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=64980.msg810841#msg810841[Caveat, there may be various legal restrictions on offering these in your jurisdiction without there being an issuer.]
Here's another idea:
Give out a tiny bit of bitcoins with each purchase, say 25 millibits (0.025 BTC, worth just under a U.S. quarter dollar). These can be printed using the same method as the notes above would be). Put an expiration date on them so that you can reclaim any funds that aren't redeemed within say a month. But what might these customers do with 25 millibits?
They could accumulate them and after they have enough to pay for a tea, they pay for their next purchase using them. (Just like the buy 10 and get the next one free type of promotion.) You know they won't be going to any other tea or coffee place using them. Or ... perhaps your customers like to play video poker? That amount is good for nearly two dozen hands of blackjack from an iPad tablet.
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http://www.bitZino.com
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