Is it helpful or harmful to the Bitcoin to offer products/services only in BTC?

[akiliholmes]

I almost ready to open a small general store and I have been going back and forth with myself on rather its of more importance to make the store exclusively for Bitcoin, include the local currency as well as BTC, or if it makes a difference one way or other? Thoughts? Experiences? Suggestions?

[pedrog]

It is not harmful to bitcoin, on the contrary, the more stuff available to be bought with bitcoin the better, but it will be harmful to the seller restricting payment methods like that, specially only allowing what can be considered a barely adopted payment method.

If you want to sell online, and be successful, you need at least accept Paypal and credit cards, depending on where you're selling to, you may also want to take a look at the most used payment methods in that location.

[gentlemand]

You might attract enough devotees to keep you buoyant, at the same time you're going to turn off the vast majority of humanity right now. It might just equal out.

How will you be sourcing stock? Are there any suppliers who'll accept BTC?

[hayabusa911]

If you are thinking about opening a brick and mortar store you would be making a huge mistake not excepting fiat currency. I believe you could do quite well accepting only Bitcoin on a E-commerce site depending on the products you are offering but you will always do better offering the customer multiple ways to pay.

[jbrnt]

I almost ready to open a small general store and I have been going back and forth with myself on rather its of more importance to make the store exclusively for Bitcoin, include the local currency as well as BTC, or if it makes a difference one way or other? Thoughts? Experiences? Suggestions?

It is recommendable that you want to promote bitcoin by opening a bitcoin exclusive store. If you want to make money, you have to accept the most common payment methods. I think it may be better for bitcoin if you promote bitcoin awareness to your fiat customers.

[TheButterZone]

I wonder... if you put BTC price tags on everything and prohibited returns, but fixed the exchange rate at your store to somewhere above market like $1250 USD/BTC. So if people wanted to pay fiat for an item you price at BTC0.5 (that you bought wholesale for the equivalent of BTC0.25 at $240 USD/BTC), they'd have to pay $625 USD.

[akiliholmes]

I like this idea tho the spikes and falls of BTC against local fiat currencies, currently, does not allow for fixed pricing.

I wonder... if you put BTC price tags on everything and prohibited returns, but fixed the exchange rate at your store to somewhere above market like $1250 USD/BTC. So if people wanted to pay fiat for an item you price at BTC0.5 (that you bought wholesale for the equivalent of BTC0.25 at $240 USD/BTC), they'd have to pay $625 USD.

[bitbaby]

I think it's best if you include both, but do advertise that you accept BTC and if it is possible offer people discounts if they purchase using BTC, this way you'll encourage people to use bitcoins and it might help in bitcoin adoption a little more for people who don't know of it might try to find out about it to avail some discounts.

[Harry Hood]

I think it's helpful.

If we are to see the project grow we need to be committed to only operating in bitcoin. If goods or services are offered in bitcoin and fiat buyers will use which ever currency is easiest. There's no incentive to us bitcoin if no one ever has to, right?

[Amph]

in theory it should force people to use bitcoin more, if you store has something that they want, otherwise better to leaves the other payments option or your income would suffer

one thing you could do, is offering some kind of bonus if someone pay in bitcoin, this should incentivate more its use, without cutting too much your earning and without escluding a big clientele

[hua_hui]

Yes, it is good for increasing bitcoin's awareness in your local area. But you want to open bitcoin payment exclusive store, it depends on what products or services you are selling! Is it relating with bitcoin or altcoins? Then you can open such kind of store! If not, you'd better provide the usual payment methods as other stores, otherwise you will be out of business!

[EternalWingsofGod]

It's likely more helpful to support multiple payment providers than one exclusively, while it is possible to develop a niche having a larger cut of the market would result in more people going to your site and being aware of Bitcoin.
That said in part it also depends on what products you decide to offer whether it makes sense to just use Bitcoin to save costs or add on additional options.

[SFR10]

I think its best if you include the most used payments on your website with the means of promoting and making Bitcoin payment your main payment but still to be able to use other payments so anyone could buy from your store

[avatar_kiyoshi]

I almost ready to open a small general store and I have been going back and forth with myself on rather its of more importance to make the store exclusively for Bitcoin, include the local currency as well as BTC, or if it makes a difference one way or other? Thoughts? Experiences? Suggestions?

Better to use local payment and btc payment. And for the price I think use local price, not btc price, why? because bitcoin price movement.

[manselr]

BTC is still too small and niche to make a business go BTC only, unless you know that your audience knows BTC. If you have a local coffee shop in the middle of somewhere you'll never encounter anyone that uses BTC. If you make it near a trendy, modern city, you'll have more chances at finding a good BTC public.
If you have an online store, it's way easier to accept BTC only and get profits, but you need to study the demographics of your location if the shop is going to be physical.

[altcoinhosting]

I think it's best if you include both, but do advertise that you accept BTC and if it is possible offer people discounts if they purchase using BTC, this way you'll encourage people to use bitcoins and it might help in bitcoin adoption a little more for people who don't know of it might try to find out about it to avail some discounts.

Giving discounts to ppl using BTC makes sense in several ways: it not only helps BTC adaptation, BTC also has a much lower fee than traditional bankcards, paypal,... Only cash has a lower fee (depending on which bank you use, and how far you're located from your banks office), but less and less people actually use cash anyways...

[ObscureBean]

I don't see why you would want to offer your products in BTC only, having more payment options is always better. If you want to promote Bitcoin just make sure you have the 'Bitcoin accepted here' banner clearly visible. USD is one of the most widely used currency in the world and it's not going anywhere anytime soon, if you're running a business, it would be silly to not accept it.

[1986]

From a business perspective I don't think it's good to only offer bitcoin payments but that's up to you. I'd create a store and accept as many payments options as I could including bitcoin. You would then get more customers from both sides as bitcoiners would chose your store over others because they could use their coins as opposed to the many stores where they cant and are forced to use their cash alternatives.

[mayflor2]

It is helpful for a certain part of the bitcoin community to offer their products and services only in exchange of btc but it is not so helpful for other people who do not deal in btc as they cannot complete transactions and payments through btc. It has its pros and cons i guess

[maheshmahi]

I dont think it is harmful but at the same time i don't think it is useful.
On today's economy not everybody has bitcoin. So it will be less used in one way or other.