As a store owner who accepts bitcoins, anyone who wants can track my income

[Stephen Gornick]

how about use one address for a day and the next day use a new address. This way they will not know your total take in and easier for owner to manage.

What if you had two customers pay the same amount at about the same time?  How would you know which customer paid and which didn't?

The proper way is for there to be a new Bitcoin address for each transaction. 

Shopping cart / E-commerce software already accommodates this.  Use a third-party payment processor if you want (e.g.. BitPay, Coinbase, etc.) and you'll never have to know nor care what a Bitcoin address is.

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[Matthew N. Wright]

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=profile;u=103058;sa=showPosts

I don't think he's a troll, just very skeptical and (at least in this thread) seems to be missing the point.

Think of a bitcoin address as being a transaction ID in Paypal. Would you want every transaction ID to be the same for every customer's orders? Doesn't a system have to make a *new* transaction ID for every single order?

Your logic: "That sounds too complicated. I guess we shouldn't take money from people and provide products or services in exchange.."

edit: If you actually *did* have a business with thousands of orders, you'd already realize that this is part of the business and businesses either learn to deal with it effectively and efficiently, or they die. This simple fact precedes the bitcoin argument by miles.

[ruggedman_dan]

There is no real concern here.

Approximate sales numbers can be found on public databases accessed through your local library or even websites like Manta.

Point is, how much your buisness is making is not a secret whether you use bitcoins or not.

[auseeker]

I'm trying to integrate bitcoin sales into my business, but find the biggest obstacle is getting the customer to understand how bitcoin works and then somehow finding ways for them to acquire bitcoins in a timely manner. Generating 1000's of addresses for each unique transaction is laughably easy compared to other issues related to accepting btc! Coinbase seems to be the most viable option for me....unless i want to BUY coins lol i think the vendor that can offer a working pre-loaded btc debit card to purchase real items from my store front will make a fortune!

[szangvil]

I am not a troll but I am skeptical.
I understood bitcoin is that one should hold a few addresses and use them, but I was wrong.

Considering them as a one-time transaction id makes more sense.

My store is not in English, but you can take a look at www.zolkan.com

[BTC Books]

I'm trying to integrate bitcoin sales into my business, but find the biggest obstacle is getting the customer to understand how bitcoin works and then somehow finding ways for them to acquire bitcoins in a timely manner. Generating 1000's of addresses for each unique transaction is laughably easy compared to other issues related to accepting btc! Coinbase seems to be the most viable option for me....unless i want to BUY coins lol i think the vendor that can offer a working pre-loaded btc debit card to purchase real items from my store front will make a fortune!

Ur doing it wrong:  you only want one address per transaction.

...and then somehow finding ways for them to acquire bitcoins in a timely manner.

Why not take two sides of those transactions with your customers, instead of just the usual, single "buy my stuff" side?  Why not offer to sell them bitcoin too?  If they're curious about bitcoin, but they find that acquiring coin is difficult, sell them some coin.  Offer them the best spread available, since you make your real profit off whatever you sell in your store.  There... now wasn't that easy?

Isn't that your job:  to make things easy for your customers and see to it that they get what they want?

[szangvil]

Isn't that your job:  to make things easy for your customers and see to it that they get what they want?

You are right

[auseeker]

I'm trying to integrate bitcoin sales into my business, but find the biggest obstacle is getting the customer to understand how bitcoin works and then somehow finding ways for them to acquire bitcoins in a timely manner. Generating 1000's of addresses for each unique transaction is laughably easy compared to other issues related to accepting btc! Coinbase seems to be the most viable option for me....unless i want to BUY coins lol i think the vendor that can offer a working pre-loaded btc debit card to purchase real items from my store front will make a fortune!

Ur doing it wrong:  you only want one address per transaction.

...and then somehow finding ways for them to acquire bitcoins in a timely manner.

Why not take two sides of those transactions with your customers, instead of just the usual, single "buy my stuff" side?  Why not offer to sell them bitcoin too?  If they're curious about bitcoin, but they find that acquiring coin is difficult, sell them some coin.  Offer them the best spread available, since you make your real profit off whatever you sell in your store.  There... now wasn't that easy?

Isn't that your job:  to make things easy for your customers and see to it that they get what they want?

Lol i phrased that incorrectly. I generate 1000's of addresses in advance and only use ONE per sale/transaction. I've only found a few customers that are willing and/or able to buy with btc. I generally show them coinbase or mt gox and explain the wait time. I also turn them on to OTC trades, but finding reliable local sellers is tough. So me being a store front AND otc seller would seem to be logical. And i do my job quite well thank you. Sales figures would indicate that 

[niko]

I am sorry to say, but it not user friendly at all.
Keeping track of so many addresses can be a real pain especially if I am a successful shop with 10 - 100 transaction a day.
It seems that bitcoin is not suitable for large scale # of transactions.

Large scale implies you are serious about your business. This implies proper effort related to accounting, supply chain management, legal, IT, and - yes - Bitcoin infrastructure. What you are complaining about is trivial, to say the least. Get serious or get out.

[szangvil]

If I generate addresses on the fly for each transaction, this mean I have to save the key to each address on the server. For many small business the use shared hosting, security will be a major issue.
And even if I have an address for each transaction, one can still figure out how much I am selling. I will have to turn those coins into fiat money in some market. So I will have to transfer them to some main address...
If I generate the addresses offline, it solves the security problem. But I don't see a way to hide my income from a determined "spy".
Bitcoin may be anonymous, but its open ledgiure blockchain may eventually kill it.

[edd]

If I generate addresses on the fly for each transaction, this mean I have to save the key to each address on the server. For many small business the use shared hosting, security will be a major issue.

If I generate the addresses offline, it solves the security problem.

You just addressed your own concern.

And even if I have an address for each transaction, one can still figure out how much I am selling. I will have to turn those coins into fiat money in some market. So I will have to transfer them to some main address...

Why would you have to transfer them to a "main address"? If you're going to sell them on an exchange like Mt. Gox, it basically works like a mixing service. I once had someone "examine" an address of mine, not realizing it was one generated by Mt.Gox and he congratulated me on my success since he could see that "I" had traded millions of bitcoins. 

But I don't see a way to hide my income from a determined "spy".

Conventional accounting doesn't "hide" anyone's income. Merchants looking to keep company business a secret from prying eyes, ie auditors, cook their books.

Bitcoin may be anonymous, but its open ledgiure blockchain may eventually kill it.

This is a common misconception. Bitcoin doesn't require identifying information from you for it to work but it is not inherently anonymous. Many here (myself included) would call its transparency a feature, not a fault.

[mrkent]

They can be basically used as transaction numbers, which you need to do as a business to identify individual transactions.

Even having a single address to use for every transaction is not completely transparent. You can just send money to that address yourself, to obscure the real number.

[szangvil]

It seems there is room for more start ups like coinbase and bitpay to offer such solutions.