Physical retail businesses have the potential to expand Bitcoin usage far more then exchanges or evangelism.
Offer for change from fiat purchases to be paid out in Bitcoin!This removes the risk of
accepting Bitcoin (although a merchant can continue accepting it), placing the burden on the merchant to remain trustworthy in order to maintain repeat patronage. The primary issue is education of customers, consisting of a three-step guide (until Bitcoin functionality is implemented in mobile browsers) and point-of-sale integration.
First, a retail business point-of-sale must support Bitcoin, including generating QR codes for refund purposes. This is easier with tablet-based systems than traditional ones, but can still be added in most cases.
Second, customer education must be provided, possibly in the form of a vinyl sticker. It should consist of three steps similar to the following:
- Call to visit a URL and/or QR code link(s) directing to the bitcoin.org wallet list, or a similar page.
- Instruction to generate a QR code to be scanned by the checkout clerk.
- Direction to verify presence of the change amount, along with explanation that it may take a short time to show up.
Supplying businesses with the Bitcoins necessary to offer this service would best be handled by existing exchanges or payment processors. There may be additional regulatory hurdles for the processors, but they might also be able to work with various exchanges to overcome this.
A basic flow of the process:
Customer -> Fiat -> Business -> Bitcoin -> Customer
The process can continue readily until fiat is removed from the path.
