How are merchants dealing with the lack of price data?

[carbonpenguin]

With Mt.Gox down, how are you coping without info about the current worth of bitcoin? Suspended business? Guessed? Based your pricing off of another source?

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[edd]

My prices are based on the highest exchange rate I've seen - $34USD to 1BTC. I firmly believe we'll bounce back from recent events and bitcoins will ultimately be worth much more. Call it my own form of speculating. In the meantime, my customers get to enjoy premium coffee at great prices and don't have to worry that they could have saved a ton of coin by just waiting a few more hours before purchasing.

[Gabriel Beal]

I've pegged the price of SquareWear's shirts to $15.  I figure the trading will go below this when it gets back rolling, but I don't think it will stay lower for long.  Plus shirt-parity (a phrase I believe you coined) is fun.

For MetaCo.in, we decided to hold off on offering another deal for 48 hours.  We thought it might be a waste to offer a deal right now.  Lots of people don't have access to their coins and the bitcoin world's focus is not on e-commerce.

Good question, by the way.  This is the kind of thing I'd love to see on a bitcoin-business subforum (or on separate site).

[super6]

Like Gabriel, I set the conversion rate on cfventure to $15/btc.

[BitVapes]

I am pricing based on tradehill.com data.   

[pipedr34]

Why not use the weighted prices from Bitcoincharts?
http://bitcoincharts.com/about/markets-api/

[BitVapes]

Why not use the weighted prices from Bitcoincharts?
http://bitcoincharts.com/about/markets-api/

perhaps someday.  Today, I prefer to get the information directly from the exchange.  Not to say I don't trust bitcoincharts, but I don't want to risk my own prices being affected by a bug or security breach there.  Also, I don't know enough about all of the different low-volume exchanges (and the security of them) which go into the weighted price they report

for me, bitcoincharts is a nice visual tool to see market data at a glance.  But when I need to do real money transactions, I want the up to date data directly from the exchange

[carbonpenguin]

Why not use the weighted prices from Bitcoincharts?
http://bitcoincharts.com/about/markets-api/

perhaps someday.  Today, I prefer to get the information directly from the exchange.  Not to say I don't trust bitcoincharts, but I don't want to risk my own prices being affected by a bug or security breach there.  Also, I don't know enough about all of the different low-volume exchanges (and the security of them) which go into the weighted price they report

for me, bitcoincharts is a nice visual tool to see market data at a glance.  But when I need to do real money transactions, I want the up to date data directly from the exchange

+1

The moving average would be good in a relatively stable market, but when you can see 20-50% moves in a day, arbitraging a merchant is would be pretty easy...

[carbonpenguin]

On a related note, have people seen a change in sales volume since mt.gox went down?

[edd]

My sales have actually increased. Several factors are probably involved, however.

1. The Metaco.in promotion boosted traffic to my site.

2. Some of my first customers are returning for more coffee.

3. I'm trying to be more involved in the forum, thus increasing views of my signature.

All that considered, if some doubting bitcoiners wish to unload their BTC, I'll happily exchange them for some premium coffee.

[Gabriel Beal]

I had an increase at SquareWear, but I let 10 people have 40% off.  I think that there have to be fewer overall sales though.  Some people don't even have access to the bulk of their money.