First customer! Help needed with exchange rate

[adormo]

We've got our first potential customer who wants to reserve an apartment in Minsk!
Great, that proves accepting bitcoins can actually drive new business.

So far I've simply added in the payment page "Bitcoins accepted here" and didn't do any Bitpay, or similar, integration.
So the first question the customer asks is: what exchange rate are you applying?
I am tempted to give the http://markets.blockchain.info/markets/mtgox/EUR rate but I wonder if there's some more official/balanced/suggested rate?
What would you do?

Thanks a lot for your help!

[hilariousandco]

We've got our first potential customer who wants to reserve an apartment in Minsk!
Great, that proves accepting bitcoins can actually drive new business.

So far I've simply added in the payment page "Bitcoins accepted here" and didn't do any Bitpay, or similar, integration.
So the first question the customer asks is: what exchange rate are you applying?
I am tempted to give the http://markets.blockchain.info/markets/mtgox/EUR rate but I wonder if there's some more official/balanced/suggested rate?
What would you do?

Thanks a lot for your help!

Use Preev. It's an average of the exchanges and updates constantly: http://preev.com/btc/gbp

[gamybtc]

Preev is gathered from other exchange rates. Just use Bitstamp rates. It is much better. If you use mtgox rate, buyer find it little more than the current rate if he researched.

[adormo]

http://markets.blockchain.info/markets/mtgox/USD
MT.Gox 895 U$
Bitstamp 863 U$

so it seems better for the payer to use 895, as he pays less BTC.
Anyway, I need also a Euro value, most of my prices are in Euro, and Bitstamp does not appear in Euro.

http://preev.com/btc/eur seems good but is it well know enough? It is also showing a lower, so bad for the payer.

Thanks!

[Rannasha]

Are you going to exchange the bitcoins you receive directly for euros or not?

If not, just quote some average price, for example from preev.

If yes, use the price of the exchange you use to sell the coins on. After all, that'll determine what you'll get. And while Bitstamp doesn't trade in euros, you can deposit and withdraw euros and Bitstamps bank does the conversion. So quoting Bitstamps price converted to euros isn't that bad of an idea, since it's a highly liquid market that pays out relatively quickly.

[adormo]

I'm gonna keep them. Even if they go down in value any extra sale is presumably generated by a customer I would not had otherwise (Bitcoin customer).

If not, just quote some average price, for example from preev.

I'd like to quote a price which makes the customer confident she/he's getting a good deal.
So far Mt.Gox seems the best for the buyer (and worst for us, but this is fine).
Also, I'd like the customer to see this before, not waiting for my quote.

This is the reason why I can't quote the Bitstamps price: the customer wants to see Euros and won't see them there.
And I'd like to spare him the effort to make the USD/EURO calculation in his mind.


P.S.
We don't sell goods and don't pay for what we sell so we can afford to lose the whole transaction (would not like to, but are not damaged by it).
So this is actually an interesting scenario where BTC adoption could spread as the risk is really low, even in case of crashes.

[hilariousandco]

I'm gonna keep them. Even if they go down in value any extra sale is presumably generated by a customer I would not had otherwise (Bitcoin customer).

If not, just quote some average price, for example from preev.

I'd like to quote a price which makes the customer confident she/he's getting a good deal.
So far Mt.Gox seems the best for the buyer (and worst for us, but this is fine).
Also, I'd like the customer to see this before, not waiting for my quote.

This is the reason why I can't quote the Bitstamps price: the customer wants to see Euros and won't see them there.
And I'd like to spare him the effort to make the USD/EURO calculation in his mind.


P.S.
We don't sell goods and don't pay for what we sell so we can afford to lose the whole transaction (would not like to, but are not damaged by it).
So this is actually an interesting scenario where BTC adoption could spread as the risk is really low, even in case of crashes.

Preev is your best bet. Its an average of several markets and you can choose between USD, GBP EURO etc.

Price data is continually gathered from multiple markets, and averaged according to the trade volume at each market. You can, if you prefer, choose a specific source from the settings menu.

[Johnny Bitcoinseed]

There is also bitcoinaverage.com