How to accept LTC/BTC in a store, café or a small business in general?

[fahrenheit451]

Hello, my fellow Cryptocoiners!


my family runs two cafeterias/restaurants and we decided to start accepting Litecoin and Bitcoin as a means of payment. I'd like to create a discussion here about this topic, because there's currently no optimal solution that would allow easy integration. Please feel free to brainstorm here with me.


My idea of this, let's call it an app, is simple.

I don't need any company to process my payments externally - i can simply take care of a volume this small on my own, that's the point #1.
Point #2 is that this system must be fool-proof as our personal doesn't have time or shouldn't even have the responsibility to operate with wallet software manually.
#3 I live in a EU country which doesn't have €, so denominating the transaction in BTC/LTC is not ultimately simple.
#4 Our touch screen terminals run windows XP (I know, :fcplm:) and have regular thermal printers connected to them, these could be utilized for printing QR codes for instance, that'd be wicked

I imagine a really simple app with a GUI, into which you would enter the transaction amount in your local currency, choose LTC/BTC, and pressed OK. A QR code comes up on the screen or is printed. Customer pays the bill. Green tick on the screen. Job done. Thank you and come back soon! Coins would be sent into a wallet of your choice, not stored localy.


Any feedback appreciated, I'm not coder or programmer, I just pursue my ideas and I think this one could possibly be a huge help to a substantial number of small business worldwide. I am also willing to financially support devlopers who would cooperate on this.


So what do you think, community?

[temor]

One really easy way that I've been using for face-2-face transactions is using the Android Wallet.
I create an address, and a corresponding QR code.
I have the other person scan said QR code and send the coins.
It takes about half a second before I see the incoming transaction.

There is no need to confirm the transaction for small purchases. It's not worth the time and effort to double spend 2 LTC.



If you're going to have this in a physical store, you could just have a QR code printed and taped somewhere near the register so the customer can easily scan it and send the LTC. It takes no longer for the cashier to look at the wallet for an incoming transaction than it takes to count coins from the register.

What could take some time is the conversion from USD ( or your local currency ) to LTC. It shouldn't take more than maybe 10 seconds though using one of many online tools.



This solution does require some manual labor on every purchase, it does not require any programming know-how at all, since everything already exists.

[fahrenheit451]

Thanks for the reply, i was considering this at first, but it's exactly what I want to avoid. I want it to be even simpler than using actual cash - because it's possible. This needs some Apple approach developers:)

[coinerd]

Thanks for the reply, i was considering this at first, but it's exactly what I want to avoid. I want it to be even simpler than using actual cash - because it's possible. This needs some Apple approach developers:)

The proposed solution is actually at least as simple as cash, I would think.

The customer who wants to pay you in LTC/BTC knows how to use it, even if your cashiers don't.

A posted QR code for those who have smartphones, and a printed account number (or maybe an easy to type URL where they can quickly copy it on their laptop/tablet/whatever they have with them) for those who don't but still want to make physical transaction in crypto.

All you need is a little monitor on your WinXP/Cash register that shows incoming transactions to the account.

This might be nearly zero development if block chain explorer offers an account balance API.

At that point the customer can say "I just sent X.XX coins to your litecoin account."  The employee looks at the monitor window, when it says "incoming transaction" for that exact amount, it's the customer's payment. If you want to wait a specific number of confirmations that's ok too.

Since it's going to be the customer's responsibility to send, this solutions is truly "easier than cash" for the employee, who just waits for the payment to show on the screen.

 And it's a very simple transaction for a bitcoin or litecoin user to make, using their own wallet or equipment.

[iGotSpots]

We take coins on our website right now, it's easy to set it up for bitcoin

http://www.igotspots.com/bitcoin.html

Still trying to figure out how we are going to accept it in our brick and mortar retail store

[temor]

You may also want to consider accepting BQC (BBQ coins). There are already restaurants accepting BQC atm, a mobile app for BQC is also being developed atm and it has a very active and dedicated team behind it.

The problem with BQC is that it's near worthless and never really took off as anything else than a joke-coin.

BTC and LTC is enough for now, I guess.

[bigdaub]

I have yet to find anything this simple. I would also imagine anyone who is going to use crypto this early in the game will be okay with a little inconvenience. We have found that a simple local wallet installed on the pos works best.

Currently we use an ipod with square for all credit card payments. We wanted to use it to take crypto but discovered Apple doesn't like it. My understanding is they won't allow mobile wallets in the marketplace. 

The problem with BQC is that it's near worthless and never really took off as anything else than a joke-coin.

As my good friend Miracle Max would say "BQC is only mostly worthless. There is a big difference between mostly worthless and all worthless"