Open Bitcoin Store: Free bitcoin online stores

[marcus_of_augustus]

Luv the puppies and kittens listings on the demo store ... nice touch 

Thanks. My favorite part was implementing the "elephant" in the demo. It has unique features, like you can't use the SHIPFREE coupon and it is very expensive to ship, because of the weight. There's only 1 in stock. It nicely shows several of the complex and sophisticated features of WooCommerce, the underlying store software.

Cool, nice use case the elephant.

Not sure if you have thought about this but if it is open source ... have you wondered about people putting stores up on Tor hidden sites using this software?

[uMMcQxCWELNzkt]

Hey aantonop, I have a new, free advertising network available. Would you be interested in joint partnership with each other so my users can try out you system, and your visitors have a new avenue to list their website. The site is marketuopia.co.uk, you can also list your own site if you like.

[w1R903]

Luv the puppies and kittens listings on the demo store ... nice touch 

Thanks. My favorite part was implementing the "elephant" in the demo. It has unique features, like you can't use the SHIPFREE coupon and it is very expensive to ship, because of the weight. There's only 1 in stock. It nicely shows several of the complex and sophisticated features of WooCommerce, the underlying store software.

hi aantonop, great initiative!  If I can help out, please let me know.  I could help if you need some client-side JS for validation or something, or if you need anymore work done on WP (although it's been several years since I last worked with PHP, I'm sure it would come back although you're responsible for any residual effects this has on my programming prowess [joking]).

Please let me know if there's anything I can do.

[aantonop]

Hey aantonop, I have a new, free advertising network available. Would you be interested in joint partnership with each other so my users can try out you system, and your visitors have a new avenue to list their website. The site is marketuopia.co.uk, you can also list your own site if you like.

Definitely interested. I am setting up a Partner page for additional services.

My expectations are simple and consistent with the OpenBitcoinStore mission.

1) All partners will offer a basic free service of some kind, just like OBS does.
2) All partners will also volunteer to support store owners via IRC, on a best-effort basis

I have requests for partners in SEO, advertising, PR, graphic design and Wordpress templates so far. I want to have a nice healthy ecosystem of services around OBS.

So yes, please join us. Send me an email please at info@openbitcoinstore.com, so I don't forget this conversation (sorry, many many store requests, I'm overwhelmed)

Thanks!

[aantonop]

hi aantonop, great initiative!  If I can help out, please let me know.  I could help if you need some client-side JS for validation or something, or if you need anymore work done on WP (although it's been several years since I last worked with PHP, I'm sure it would come back although you're responsible for any residual effects this has on my programming prowess [joking]).

Please let me know if there's anything I can do.

I definitely need help, especially JS and client-side. I need to implement a "hover for BTC price" with exchange rate. Not easy...

Please visit openbitcoinstore.com and go to Volunteer, or email at info@bitcoinstore.com. Sorry for the extra contact request, too much going on and I need to use a process to not lose my head!

[aantonop]

Our BETA has generated more than 75 applications for bitcoin stores in about 4 days. I have absolutely no doubt that the stated goal of "a thousand bitcoin stores" can be achieved by the end of the year, barring unforeseen changes in adoption.

We've proven there's demand for easy-to-setup instant stores. We've proven there is a huge community of retailers, wannabe retailers and volunteers willing to work together. Now, we need to overcome some of the initial problems and really take this to the next level.

PROBLEMS:

* We've found a bug that is causing the content to reset on Heroku. It may force us to reconsider our hosting options.
* All the free hosting options require a credit card for verification. That is a relic of "old economy"

Our plan BTC needs a Plan B for hosting (and C,D,E...)


I am asking for suggestions for hosting:

Where would you host 1000 stores based on WordPress?

Are there ANY decent free options that do not require a credit card for verification (both Heroku and AWS do require one).

I am considering a paid hosted option, funded by donations and hosting multiple virtual stores in a single instance server (multiple databases). This will cost about $100 a month, but we should be able to host a lot of low-traffic stores without problem. That would also make it faster to set them up.

Help? Comments? Thoughts?

[marcus_of_augustus]

Use hosting that you can pay for with bitcoin?

I think there are bitcoin-only hostings already somewhere.

[aantonop]

Use hosting that you can pay for with bitcoin?

I think there are bitcoin-only hostings already somewhere.

If I can find a hosting company that supports bitcoin and is willing to offer a free basic hosting plan for the stores, then I will use them. If it is just a matter of paying by bitcoin versus fiat, and I'm taking all the risk and volatility for a community project personally, then I'd rather use USD and specifically AWS.

I imagine that out of 1000 bitcoin stores, 90% will get one order a month and little traffic (just the reality of retail "long tail"). So for a hosting company, the questions is: how to offer reliable FREE service to the 900 stores and then upsell the successful ones that emerge into supported and paid hosting plans.

There is a tremendous opportunity for a hosting company to partner (see http://openbitcoinstore.com/index.php/partners/).

Any specific ones in mind?

[marcus_of_augustus]

None specific but here is link to list that do ... one may actually be open to the idea of Hosting the beta store projects for free to establish itself for future paying options/upgrades etc and as the go-to hosting for bitcoin stores using your paltform.

https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Trade#Web_Hosting

[BkkCoins]

Unfortunately free hosting without credit card signup was proven to be terribly abused and risky for the hosts. The ones that offer this tend to be super flaky, put ads on the sites and play scam games.

[Tesion]

what about appfog? Or modifying the plugins to use Wordpress MU? (Which would be AMAZING) Single sign on for example. Or a "shared" walle where you could buy in different shops / sites from the "Bitcoin shop MU" would be amazing

[aantonop]

A quick update. 76 store applications, 6 launched before we froze the beta to deal with some bugs. We will be resuming store launches next week.


To solve the hosting issues and remove the need for store owners to verify with a credit card, I've decided to build a multi-tenant, multi-server load-balanced OpenBitcoinStore hosting option on AWS. We will be funding the hosting from donations, paid via a donor's credit card. The estimated cost will be approximately $2,500 for the first year. I am confident we can raise that from donations and willing to front it myself if I'm wrong.

This will allow us to continue to offer a free store to any store owner, without needing a credit card. We will be able to  scale through CDN, and load balancers to deliver the necessary performance, resiliency and availability.

We will be re-launching OpenBitcoinStore with a much simpler, faster, store signup process next week.

We have learnt a lot of lessons from the BETA and we can now apply those lessons to the next stage.

Many thanks for all the support.

[aantonop]

OpenBitcoinStore is re-launched, with a ton of improvements:

- No credit card needed for any of it
- No waiting, it's all automatic
- Fewer configuration steps, it's mostly pre-configured
- A wizard that makes it ridiculously easy - just 4 pieces of information: Store name, title, subtitle, email and password.
- The wizard deploys with one click in 18 seconds.

Instead of reading more stuff, you could have a store ready 30 seconds from now.

The new wizard: http://apply.openbtcshop.com:8080/


Full instructions at openbitcoinstore.com

Our hosting is paid by donations and is free for all store owners.

Donate here: http://openbitcoinstore.com/index.php/donate/

Thank you for all the support.

Our slogan: Let a thousand bitcoin stores bloom! (I'm now confident we'll be there by the end of the year)

[Global BTC]

Wow! Great job, guys!

[aantonop]

Six more stores launched overnight.

Keep it up bitcoiners!

http://apply.openbtcshop.com/

Self-service launch a store in less than a minute.

[aantonop]

I'll keep doing updates, as the rate of adoption is quite impressive and inspiring:

Twenty four stores launched since the last update yesterday.

[Anonymailer]

You might look at https://www.nearlyfreespeech.net for hosting the smaller stores - pay for what you use so it could be a lot cheaper than standard base shared hosting packages

Does your store also work for fiat currencies? I'll be setting up an art store sometime soon and if so I'll definitely consider this…

[aantonop]

Does your store also work for fiat currencies? I'll be setting up an art store sometime soon and if so I'll definitely consider this…

Absolutely, the store can price the product in one of more than 100 currencies, including bitcoin. You can also accept payment by credit card or paypal. You can price in fiat and receive bitcoin, if you want, or price in fiat and receive fiat, or price in bitcoin and receive fiat.. etc.

It also supports different types of taxes and shipping and calculates both for the total amount.

[aantonop]

A quick update on Open Bitcoin Store.

There are now 64 stores fully deployed. Five or more stores are launched each day using the simple launch wizards.

We've got the process down to 16 seconds from form-to-store. Anyone can now be a bitcoin retailer, or at least try their business and sales skills, with no risk, no cost, no technical skills and no effort for the setup.

The project now has 16 volunteers helping with technical support, as well as half a dozen store owners who hang out on IRC daily. We're building a community, not just a bunch of stores

Join us!

openbitcoinstore.com

[bootlace]

This is pretty cool of you to offer this service for free, major props!