Reasons a business should accept bitcoin

[steelboy]

Would love to make a list to tell people, any ideas?

[beetcoin]

some ideas:

1. lower transaction/merchant fees.
2. you can be the among the first to accept BTC, this would definitely help your businesses, especially if you are a bar and arrange meetups at your location.
3. free advertising and word of mouth will come around. more chatter about your service or product.

[hilariousandco]

What Beet said, plus the value is likely to keep growing steady along with the market growth. Also no charegback issues.

[joburgtaxi]

To be trendy and be doing something your competitors are not

[hilariousandco]

To be trendy and be doing something your competitors are not

lol, I suppose Bitcoin is pretty Hipster/underground. They wont like it when it breaks through to the mainstream.

[BittBurger]

The standard list for merchants is:

1)  Avoiding the 3-5% Visa and Mastercard merchant fees.  And make sure you point out that international rewards credit cards can reach 7% to 12% per transaction for these merchants.  Its a well hidden fact that many merchants aren't even aware they're paying.  BitPay is I believe the highest at nearly 1%.  Coinbase allows up to $1 million in transactions with *zero* merchant fees.  For me, that is a savings of over $75,000 a year, and I own a fairly small online store.  

2)  No chargebacks.  All sales are final.  Power is put back into the hands of the merchant to coordinate disputes with customers.  There is no Visa and Mastercard forceably taking money out of your account without your knowledge or consent, then forcing you to prove why they should give it back.  Chargebacks cost merchants millions of dollars a year.

3)  The ability to hold coins if you so wish, which will inevitably increase in value.  

4)  The ability to instantly convert to USD and deposit into your bank account like any other payment system.

5)  User friendly shopping cart plugins exist from most of the major merchants.  ZenCart, Magento, OSCommerce bitcoin plugins exist, and work very well.

6)  Being part of currently *very* widely published exclusive Bitcoin Merchant lists on numerous websites.  AKA:  Free advertising.

7)  Encouraging the growth and security of Business owners personal bitcoin holdings by participating in the Bitcoin economy and directly helping it grow.

8 )  Ability to offer substantial discounts / incentives (due to the lack of merchant fees) when the merchant feels like it, to encourage greater sales volume.

I'm sure there's more ...

[zimmah]

most people don't realize but it takes days/weeks/months for most forms of transactions to reach the bank account of the store owner, often with huge fees. (even paper money) and risk of chargebacks.

paper money also bears risk of robberies (and theft from cashiers, even though almost no cashier is stupid enough to steal) so most stores don't like being paid in cash.

not to mention the problems with change.

Bitcoin doesnt have any of these problems.

[hottweelz]

As a multiple business owner, my personal perception is there is a great "Lack Of Trust"

I'm in the process of attempting to accept BTC for a few different companies... but I'm not convinced it's safe.... no matter who I use for a broker, exchanger, etc.

Its not worth LOSING income over trying sway a "niche bunch"

Yet I still look for legit reasons to accept BTC... simply not finding them.

[hottweelz]

most people don't realize but it takes days/weeks/months for most forms of transactions to reach the bank account of the store owner, often with huge fees. (even paper money) and risk of chargebacks.

paper money also bears risk of robberies (and theft from cashiers, even though almost no cashier is stupid enough to steal) so most stores don't like being paid in cash.

not to mention the problems with change.

Bitcoin doesnt have any of these problems.

What are you smoking?  Can I have some?

[Syke]

As a multiple business owner, my personal perception is there is a great "Lack Of Trust"

I'm in the process of attempting to accept BTC for a few different companies... but I'm not convinced it's safe.... no matter who I use for a broker, exchanger, etc.

Its not worth LOSING income over trying sway a "niche bunch"

Yet I still look for legit reasons to accept BTC... simply not finding them.

Huh? Accepting BTC is 100% safe, unlike every other payment method.

[bryant.coleman]

I don't think retail business will adapt to BTC quickly. But BTC is very convenient to online stores, and online merchants whose clients need high level of anonymity (porn, extremist organizations.etc).

In general, the advantages are: Anonymity, Ease of doing transaction, Low fees, No extra charges for currency conversion.etc

[User_513]

1) Because no government can create endless trillions of them at a whim
2) Because they will continue to appreciate in value every time a government continues to create trillions more of their fiat currencies
3) Because commerce between two parties ought not be subjected to the whims of a third

[gla22]

Listed in order of importance:

1.) Free advertising- Accepting bitcoin should increase sales as it engages the bitcoin community and the company will receive buzz on various bitcoin oriented websites
2.) Branding- Accepting bitcoin may give the impression that the business is savvy and forward thinking.

[SeanArce]

People keep trading BTC for USD

It's never gonna work unless people stop doing this

[hottweelz]

Huh? Accepting BTC is 100% safe, unlike every other payment method.

How is it 100% safe?

You can lose a wallet over an inexperienced staff member.

Wait, which staff members do I trust with a currency that is anonymous?

Didn't some drug dealer just run off with 108 million dollars in bitcoins?

I call it about 5% safe.

[beetcoin]

i have another thing to add: accepting bitcoins will help your businesses, especially if you sell a service or product that is expensive, because not having to cash out your BTC to fiat means that the buyer does not have to pay capital gains taxes. if i were buying a tesla for $100k with bitcoins, i would pay $0 in capital gains taxes (though you'd have to pay sales tax.. but you'd do that with fiat too). if i cashed out my bitcoins after holding for a year, that $100k in bitcoins turns into $80k.

[Syke]

Huh? Accepting BTC is 100% safe, unlike every other payment method.

How is it 100% safe?

Because once it is received to an encrypted wallet, *no one* can take it without the password. You cannot get any safer than that. If you cannot keep a password secure, then you have no business being in the money management position at a business. You can't fault bitcoin for *your* failures.

[Damnsammit]

Huh? Accepting BTC is 100% safe, unlike every other payment method.

How is it 100% safe?

Because once it is received to an encrypted wallet, *no one* can take it without the password. You cannot get any safer than that. If you cannot keep a password secure, then you have no business being in the money management position at a business. You can't fault bitcoin for *your* failures.

This... your employees should never have access to your private key.  They should just have a QR code that sends to an address they can't access, but can confirm transactions through the block chain.

Or you could use Bitpay...

[QuinnHarris]

From a merchant perspective bitcoin should be better than credit cards.  Lower fees and services like bitpay take 1 day to give you dollars vs the 2-5 days for credit cards.  And no charge backs.

Most businesses couldn't get away with just accepting bitcoin today but having that option won't hurt.

Fundamentally bitcoin can be more secure than credit cards.  Unlike credit cards, sending someone bitcoins in no way allows them to take more of your bitcoin than you authorize.  You don't have to worry about merchants securing their systems, only securing your own.

The customer is the one who might find bitcoin worse than credit cards today.  Notably there are no charge backs so you have to trust the merchant.  This can be fixed using 2-3 signature transactions with an escrow service but the software to easily use this isn't available though the network supports it.  Today there are no established organization that provide this escrow service.

From a fundamental design standpoint bitcoin has the existing payment methods like credit cards beat but some of the software and organizations to make it work well have not yet been developed.

[zimmah]

most people don't realize but it takes days/weeks/months for most forms of transactions to reach the bank account of the store owner, often with huge fees. (even paper money) and risk of chargebacks.

paper money also bears risk of robberies (and theft from cashiers, even though almost no cashier is stupid enough to steal) so most stores don't like being paid in cash.

not to mention the problems with change.

Bitcoin doesnt have any of these problems.

What are you smoking?  Can I have some?

i can not imagine you are a business owner without even knowing the drawbacks of each currency.

you probably have a web-shop otherwise you would be familiar with the problems of cash transactions.

even still, a web-shop can benefit by bitcoin because unlike credit cards and paypal, bitcoin can not be charged back (so you're less likely to get scammed by your customers). and credit card payments are not instant, unlike bitcoin.

You can also get more customers by offering a discount, as the transaction fees are lower, thus saving you money for discounts. Transaction fees, especially for small transactions, can be quite hefty.