[ANN] BitcoinStore.com (Beta) - Electronics super store with over 500K items!

[Zangelbert Bingledack]

This looks awesome! It'd give anyone checking it out a real incentive to buy if you fetched competitor prices and posted them alongside the BitcoinStore price. Also, misspelled "Greater than" and "Less than" in the price categorizations (which don't seem to work, by the way).

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[alexanderanon]

Meh. How about we just get that bitcoin debit card already and then buy direct from Amazon.

- Restless bitcoin mob

[hazek]

YES!!

OMFG http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VLnWf1sQkjY

[sharky112065]

Yes! Yes! Yes!

This is exactly what Bitcoin needs IMO.

The site seems a bit slow on responses, but I'm hoping that will be fixed soon.

[Technomage]

The main menu goes all over the place for me. Very difficult to browse the site

[BitPay Business Solutions]

Meh. How about we just get that bitcoin debit card already and then buy direct from Amazon.

- Restless bitcoin mob

If you want bitcoin to become really popular and valuable, it needs big merchants like Amazon to accept it directly.  If Amazon starts getting undercut on sales, they will notice, and they will look at ways to reduce their risk and cost of collecting payments online.  Bitcoin solves that problem, as Roger is about to demonstrate to the world.

[CoinDiver]

Find something hot, that you can undercut the rest of the web on, and get it posted on SlickDeals.net.

[crazy_rabbit]

Oh lord thank you, finally!

[bbit]

I'm crying!!! with joy!

[jwzguy]

I got an error trying to access this page: http://www.bitcoinstore.com/pcslaptops/portable-computers.html

But after refreshing it a few times it came up.

Additionally - I would just call the category Laptops&Tablets, not "portable computers."

[Spekulatius]

Nice thing Roger, hope it works!

Comparative advertising is legal in the USA right? I think you can put more weight on that. Make price comparisons of feautured products on your front page, like you did in this OP.

Also, I was trying to find "iphone 5" and was not able to. I dont know whether you have that on shelf or not but to grind through 31k results is impossible, even organizing according to price is no better if you have pages of 50k+ USD and under 5 USD results it would take forever to get to the iphone 5 price segment. If you try the same thing on amazon its also a bit of a hassle, but there you have more categories to narrow your search down to, like showing only Apple products for example. Maybe you could improve on that before going out of beta.

One more thing, when I selected "show all results" on the upper left bar it froze. I presume the server tried to create a page for me with all 31k results on it. You could solve that problem (I think) if you only showed all the results one currently views on screen, like in google picture search.

Cheers

[jimbobway]

In order to maintain these competitive prices, I will need to sell more than $800K USD worth of goods per quarter,  so please place your orders and help spread the word!

If a user buys $1000 worth of computer supplies every three months then:

$800,000 / $1000 = 800

It would only take 800 orders per quarter.  Seems doable in the long run.  Hopefully sooner than later.

[ArticMine]

I'm actually getting pretty close to launching my newegg.com competitor.
It will be Bitcoin only,  and competitive with newegg on just about everything.
It will have over 500,000 items available with real time inventory checks.

Here is a sneak preview:

This looked really exciting to me until I visited the shipping methods page of Memory Dealers http://memorydealers.com/shipping-rates/ when it becomes a clear no deal for me. The reason is you do not offer and advertise the US Postal Service as a shipping option to your customers. Let me explain:

When it comes to international and residential package delivery the private shipping companies simply do not get it here in Canada. I have seen UPS charge a $50 brokerage fee to broker a $3.50 GST charge at the border on an Item that cost $50. This got so bad the there was a class action lawsuit in Canada against UPS over this. http://www.classaction.ca/actions/Consumer-Protection/Current-Actions/United-Parcel-Service-Canada-Ltd-%28-UPS-%29.aspx. They have now changed their fees somewhat after the litigation but they are sill far to high. Canada Post charges a flat fee of $8.50 for brokerage. http://www.canadapost.ca/tools/pg/manual/PGcustoms-e.asp#1382719. That is it

Then there is the issue of delivery to a residential address especially in the smaller centers. With Canada Post if I am not home I get a notice in my mailbox and I can go to a retail outlet in my neighborhood to pick up my package. This is simple and very convenient as these outlets are typically open evenings and weekends.  With private couriers I may get a phone call or in some cases I have to contact them using the tracking information provided by the shipper. Then to arrange for delivery I have to either spend all day waiting of the courier to arrive or drive to some office in the outskirts of town, or in some cases in another community a few hundred miles away, open only from 8:30 to 4:30 on weekdays to pick up my package. Private couriers are very good at delivering documents to a business that has a reception. They fail very badly with delivering packages to residential addresses, and are even worse with international shipments.

This may sound like a real hearsay to many in this community, but it must be said: When it comes to shipping items purchased with Bitcoin to residential customers the "State Postal Monopoly"  here in Canada http://www.canadapost.ca does an excellent job, while the private sector fails miserably.

For me as a customer purchasing online it is very simple: Deliver using the Post Office or no sale.

Here are some examples regarding residential deliveries by private sector companies:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D7Sb_r7BKTc
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ikanns26nDA
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=APqvq0Kn55o
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W1qUd9na_PQ

The store and pricing is actually very good, but as I suspected the deal killer for a customer in Canada is shipping. I include my post from earlier this year on the subject.

When it comes to shipping products from the United States to Canada there are basically 3 options

1) Private Courier by Air with prepaid brokerage. This can be good for certain customers but very expensive. It only really makes sense when one needs the item right away, and for shipment to a business address. For a $20.71 item the most economical shipping is $95.91 to Prince George BC and $87.30  to Vancouver BC. This is the only option offered at this point.

2) Private Courier by Ground with brokerage extra. On the surface this will appear cheap however the customer is charged expensive "brokerage" "bond" and "handling" fees as I noted in my previous post above. This is by far the worst and no self respecting merchant should offer this option. To Memory Dealers credit it is not offered.

3) USPS with various options regarding cost vs delivery time. This is by far the best option for residential customers and also for many small businesses. Unfortunately it is not offered at this time.

The bottom line is that to be competitive in the international mail order business a US based merchant needs to offer USPS as a shipping option.
  

[Mushroomized]

Neato

[enmaku]

It's redirecting to the Magento Install script now:
http://www.bitcoinstore.com/index.php/install/

Which I'm fairly certain is something I should not have access to 

[Mushroomized]

It's redirecting to the Magento Install script now:
http://www.bitcoinstore.com/index.php/install/

Which I'm fairly certain is something I should not have access to 

Maybe you can install your blog on the site now 

[enmaku]

It's redirecting to the Magento Install script now:
http://www.bitcoinstore.com/index.php/install/

Which I'm fairly certain is something I should not have access to 

Appears to have been fixed now

[Tril]

Just trying to load the main page results in:

There has been an error processing your request

Exception printing is disabled by default for security reasons.

Error log record number: (random)

[lucb1e]

Great initiative! Can't wait till the beta ends; the $1000 minimum and $110 shipping costs are absurd. Also the site is slow, randomly empties your cart, and displays USD. All beta issues I hope...

[Raoul Duke]

I don't know where are you getting your international shipping prices from, but someone is stealing, if not you, the shipping company.
$300 to ship a laptop to Europe, really?
A flat rate USPS box that can fit a laptop costs $55...