Grocery giant SPAR accepting Bitcoin payments via lightning network

[goldkingcoiner]

Oh wow that is big!

SPAR is all over Europe, I have been there myself in Italy, Croatia and Austria. It's basically one of the big names after Lidl and Aldi. That is going to have a substantial impact on the growth of Bitcoin price and Lightning Network use.

How would you guys describe Spar supermarket? In my country, it's one of the worst supermarket, they are expensive and treat their employees very bad. In my country we even joke about being a Spar employee because in this supermarket, you are cashier, cleaner, consultant and everything for a few bucks per month and even in this case, they can give you a fine of 1/20 of your salary if you don't arrive on time or if you do anything that the management or security camera guys won't like. This grocery store is so undeveloped in my country, I couldn't imagine if they would be the first supermarket to accept Bitcoin payments via Lightning Network.

I am pretty sure the same goes for all supermarkets. I have worked in one in Germany. It was not fun and I never even got paid in the end.

[SatoPrincess]

This is interesting. Spar is a one of the biggest supermarkets in Nigeria and across Africa, reading this news I can’t wait for this development to start happening in the Spar supermarket in my city. Although I doubt there will be a significant number of customers willing to pay for their shopping in crypto.

I hope I'm wrong, but it's unlikely that this service will reach Africa, maybe it won't even go beyond Switzerland - because for the service to work, SPAR needs a partner (payment processor) who will process transactions at the national level, and there is also the issue of paying extra taxes when paying with cryptocurrencies. Perhaps it all depends on how the service is accepted in Switzerland, because if it doesn't succeed in one rich country, there will be no reason to implement it anywhere else.

It’s not unlikely, it may only take a while to reach Nigeria. The limitation here is not a payment processor to partner with SPAR. These payments services already exist in the country. I think the problem will be getting customers to pay in bitcoin. 

[o48o]

Maybe i just don't get why people think this is huge.

It's third party gateway, meaning that shop doesn't hold or even see the crypto. Your bitcoins are sold to the market and fiat money is given for your purhaces.

You have been able to do this with crypto visa cards for ages in everywhere. And i am willing to bet you need to kyc for this service, if not yet, then in the future.

Sure, some people might see bitcoin as payment option, which gives it some visibility, but who doesn't know about bitcoin already?

[Saint-loup]

It's great news but unfortunately Switzerland doesn't belong to European Union so I wonder if such thing would still be acceptable in European country applying new EU regulations about cryptocurrencies to be honest. Anyway, it's a good news because it could give good ideas to other countries and to other grocery companies outside of Europe, even if it's not easily feasible in Europe countries.

[Lucius]

~snip~
Can you imagine that they pay$300 per month (gross) to cashiers here? Consider that food and apartment prices in my country are more expensive than in most of European countries, this is crazy.

Look, I'm in the EU and the average salary in the net amount for an employee in a store is from EUR 750 to EUR 950, which is somehow the legal minimum wage. Of course, there are exceptions where people are paid more, but from what I've seen in such stores, you work like a machine in every possible position and people are under a lot of stress.

Btw I agree with your mentality, in situations like this, it's our duty to stick our nose there but the problem is the mentality of my people. If you protest low salaries, another one will come who will work on lower salary. There have been multiple protests but all of them have failed because there is always somebody who is willing to work for a lower salary despite the fact that this salary is not enough to live.

It's not just a problem of the mentality of people in your country, I think it's the same everywhere in the world - it's more a matter of a collective consciousness that this is a job that anyone can do and that therefore people who work there can be paid very little for their work. Where I live, teachers, doctors and various civil servants often go on strike and demand higher wages - and at the same time they have at least 50% higher wages than those who work in supermarkets - in other words, life is hard for them, but they don't care about those who are exploited by the private sector.

[buwaytress]

@buwaytress, thanks for the info - I hope that city will continue to hold that title, despite the fact that EU bureaucrats are looking for ways to make life difficult for all of us. However, if the local community is still active, it means that there is still hope that the project will continue to exist.

NP! It's really a self-given title but at least one that is accurate! I think their model works, even on an individual basis. Make it worthwhile for people to pay with Bitcoin (by giving discounted rates), and people will do it. As a freelancer starting out, that's how I got people to pay in Bitcoin too (offer clients a discounted rate for their troubles).

They have some weaknesses, as I documented in past posts (lack of training for staff the most obvious) but hey, this is how it's supposed to be (and also for those people who wonder why Bitcoin is where it is today... the evidence is always around you.

The website, by the way.

[Synchronice]

~snip~
Can you imagine that they pay$300 per month (gross) to cashiers here? Consider that food and apartment prices in my country are more expensive than in most of European countries, this is crazy.

Look, I'm in the EU and the average salary in the net amount for an employee in a store is from EUR 750 to EUR 950, which is somehow the legal minimum wage. Of course, there are exceptions where people are paid more, but from what I've seen in such stores, you work like a machine in every possible position and people are under a lot of stress.

That's true but I bet that's East EU salaries. In west EU, salaries and work-life balance is better but overall, these types of jobs (unskilled jobs) treat people like slaves and overwork them, doesn't matter what kind of strict laws a country has, companies always try to abuse unskilled workers. That's why I always suggest everyone that they should get a skill (it's not necessary to finish the university because if you aren't extremely talented or from a rich family, you won't make it because you'll have to depend on someone to feed you and give you basic money for years). Skilled workers have much better salaries at least and some of them even manage to start a business after few years. Also, it's easy to acquire some trades skill and the market saturation is at its lowest these days.

[tread93]

After running a successful pilot in two locations a supermarket chain is rolling out bitcoin payments across Switzerland.
Spar is one of the largest grocery chains in the world with thousands of locations on four continents.

If a big company like this can prove bitcoin can work for payments on everyday consumer items, that will be big for bitcoin adoption.
Bitcoin works well enough on its own as a store of value, but if it can also be utilized as a viable payment option to me that is just icing on the cake.

What are the benefits to the merchant? Lighting transaction fees are fractions of a penny, almost nothing compared to the big fees
merchants must pay every time the customer swipes their bank card. And settlement time is much faster, minutes instead of days.
Of course lightning is much cheaper and faster than going through the base layer.



SPAR grocer to launch Bitcoin payments across Switzerland after successful pilot in two locations

Wow, this is surely big news!! This is a great way of pushing BTC adoption in tbe right direction if spar can do this at scale then it would set the tone for other retailors, especially if they manage to do and others catch on. Low fees and faster payments are always a plus

[shield132]

It's not just a problem of the mentality of people in your country, I think it's the same everywhere in the world - it's more a matter of a collective consciousness that this is a job that anyone can do and that therefore people who work there can be paid very little for their work. Where I live, teachers, doctors and various civil servants often go on strike and demand higher wages - and at the same time they have at least 50% higher wages than those who work in supermarkets - in other words, life is hard for them, but they don't care about those who are exploited by the private sector.

It's mostly the problem of the mentality of people in my country. If you go outside and protest lgbt propaganda, every people will come and protest with you but if you go and protest grocery prices or low salaries, no one will give a damn. This is the mentality of people, they perceive different problems, they care more about things that doesn't matter instead of worrying about things that matter the most. Here men are very lazy and most of them live on their wives incomes, their wives work abroad in European countries as a waitress, cleaners, caregivers and etc...