However this solution of hardcoding a number is not sustainable. There can't be a new software rollout every time the price in $ changes. In the long run, it need to be the miners that determine the fee and broadcast this somehow so that it can be determined dynamically.

With the fees? I mean with bitcoins getting rare lately paying a 0.0015 fee for sending 0.01 btc seems a bit extreme, even if there are 8 inputs, paying 30 cents for a 2 dollar transfer is a bit greedy and even though I understand that this is necessary to decrease the size of the chain wouldn't it be possible to introduce different concepts in order to make the chain smaller? Possibly "timestamping" a certain point in the chain and deleting all the spent transactions before that and then using it as a new start? This could be done automatically every month for example.

I've seen this.

Has anyone used their service yet and has a testimonial as to how it went for them?

Buying groceries is, in my opinion, one of the primary indicators of a payment method's maturity. So naturally I was excited to see that Bitspend is making it possible for me to buy groceries with bitcoin. My regular grocery store offers online ordering and delivery service through My Web Grocer, though until now I have never used it since the physical store is just a couple blocks away.

Timeline of ordering process:
 •Mon. 11pm - Submit Bitspend order form, requesting Wednesday, 10am delivery time.
 •Tues. 10am - Receive email from Bitspend confirming order receipt
 •Tues. 12:40pm - Receive email from Bitspend indicating incomplete order information (I had given them URLs that lacked a store ID#, so I needed to specify which MWG store to order from)
 •Tues. 3:52pm - Send email to Bitspend with the necessary information to complete my order
 •Tues. 4:39pm - Receive invoice from Bitspend with wallet address and order cost, valid for 30 minutes. (I was away from my wallet so I could not pay at the time.)
 •Tues. 7:20pm - Send email to Bitspend requesting new order cost and wallet address.
 •Tues. 7:27pm - Receive new payment information
 •Tues. 7:36pm - Payment initiated
 •Tues. 7:45pm - Receive order receipt from MWG via email from Bitspend confirming placement of order
 •Wed. 10:10am - First attempted delivery (I didn't hear the door knock)
 •Wed. 11:35am - Wondering where the order is, I email Bitspend.
 •Wed. 11:38am - Receive complete MWG invoice indicating order details (but no confirmation of scheduled delivery time)
 •Wed. 11:43am - I call the grocery store directly and tell them that my order hasn't arrived yet. They immediately guess which address I'm calling from (I confirm) and tell me they will arrive in 5 minutes.
 •Wed. 11:50am - Groceries arrive at my front door, I sign a receipt, and I receive physical copies of MWG invoice and grocery store transaction itemization.
 
Total turnaround time: ~36 hours.

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Pros:
 •All communication from Bitspend was impressively prompt.
 •I got to order groceries with bitcoin (duh!)
 •Bitspend normally asks for full confirmation of payment before proceeding with order. They offered to proceed after just 1 confirmation for my order since the requested delivery time was imminent.
 
Cons:
 •Invoices received from Bitspend were often missing relevant information. I always had the information I needed to complete my part of the order process, but I would have liked to see more information so I know exactly what's going on. For example, when I received my initial order invoice and payment request, the order total (in $), MWG service charge (in $), Bitspend service charge (in $), and requested payment amount (in BTC) were all listed, but there was no subtotal (in $) listed, and no listed quote of MTGox weighted average (which was used to convert $ to BTC). Obviously I could figure this out with simple arithmetic, but it could easily be listed directly on the invoice to save me the hassle.
 •Requested payment amounts were quoted to 10-15 BTC, while transactions are limited to 10-8 BTC, or 1 satoshi. I rounded to the nearest satoshi (which in my case was rounding up), and I asked Bitspend what was the appropriate way to truncate the amount, but I'm still not clear on what is expected. Requested payment amounts should simply be presented to the user with no more than 8 decimal places to avoid ambiguity.
 •I included some produce in my order, such as 2 lbs of ground beef, which of course ended up delivered as something like 2.02 lbs. The amount I was charged by Bitspend reflects the amount indicated on my order form (in round numbers), while the amount Bitspend paid to MWG appears to reflect the amount that was actually delivered. Overall the price I paid to Bitspend was $1.15 too high for the amount of produce I received. I imagine this could swing in the user's favor at some point if the initial price were an underestimate (instead of the overestimate I paid). It would be nice if the price I pay accurately reflects the delivered products' price, but I'm not really sweating the difference. (This seems to be an issue with MWG itself, rather than Bitspend. See edit 1 below.)
 •Including MWG fees ($4.95), Bitspend fees ($2.50), and overestimated initial price ($1.15), I could have saved $8.60 if I went to the store in person. Actually, I was charged no taxes in this transaction, and I may have been charged 5.5% sales tax on some of these items if I purchased them in person, so maybe the fees are not that bad.
 •Just about every time I sent an email to Bitspend, I received a spammy auto-reply message telling me that my order is in queue to be processed, and I continue to get such messages when emailing Bitspend after my order has been completed. This feels really unprofessional. (See edit 1 below for Bitspend's response)
 •Having to request a new destination address and MTGox quote if I don't pay within 30 minutes of receipt of the invoice is somewhat irritating. Bitspend told me that this process will be automated soon though, and the 30 minute time limit will no longer apply.
 •Bitspend's website indicates a 10-item limit for orders of $50-100. My order was in this price range, and included 15 items, and I was charged $2.50 for my order, so I'm not sure if the item limit was waived, or does not apply to an itemized grocery list. I'm not sure if this belongs as a "con" or a "pro" or as a "I'm confused by their website still". Some clarification would be nice.
 
Overall impressions

I was generally very happy to be able to spend my coins on groceries, and most of the difficulties were tolerable and understandable for a 4-person startup in its second week of operation. Hopefully those difficulties will be ironed out soon though if Bitspend is going to maintain a professional image. I will likely do most of my grocery shopping this way in the future, as long as I can tolerate the turnaround time from order submission to receipt of goods. Most of the delays I experienced can be eliminated now that I know how things work.

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edit 1: I received a response regarding the price estimation issue and email spam:

 
I can absolutely guarantee one thing--If we were charged LESS than whats on the invoice, we will send you a refund of the difference within seconds. If we were charged less, we did not know it. I am sure you can understand that we paid the invoice of <redacted>--and we were nto told the price "might change"! We will look through our charges this evening and if we DO see that we were charged less we will notifyyou for an address to send the BTC back to.

As far as your email, we had NO IDEA you were getting those emails, they should NOT be going out--that was a test that was cancelled and it seems only a few people for some reason or another have the reply-email issue, our apologies--we;re looking into fixing it now.

Thanks, Justin
 
edit 2: Justin sent me another email offering to refund the $1.15 misestimation in price, even though he's not sure yet if it's Bitspend or MWG or the grocer who kept the profit. He is also refunding my $2.50 Bitspend fee. This kind of customer service is why I decided to use Bitspend in the first place!

I doubt the retailers will turn down extra business

The problem is it ends up being more expensive for the consumer because they're paying more markup to cover the overhead of the intermediary. That's why pizzaforcoins doesn't work; you end up paying ~$40 for a pizza that should cost you $25.

https://bitspend.net/


I've not used their service but it appears you send them coin and they purchase on your behalf, which should be interesting to see how retailers respond to this (can you say TOS hell).

pgp

So, you're thinking that one bitcoin can be worth 160,000? mmmm
by the time that happens, your mortgage might be paid in full already...

So you're going to sell a currency that went up 2000% in 8 months, to pay a mortgage that charges you 5-6% at the most???
I don't see it, sorry...
maybe you might want to reduce your bitcoin investment and sell half... but I wouldn't sell all!