We Need a Real Bitcoin Online Store, not "retailers" who just price gouge 15-20%

[Phinnaeus Gage]

What about selling the food stuff that Walmart doesn't carry?

I was actually getting to that same conclusion...
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Next time, post faster. Or you could have mentioned selling other stuff that Walmart doesn't carry like...let me think for a second...I almost have it...here it is...Stuff Made in America.

btw, i wasn't dissing ur post, 3phrase--just wanted to drive my point home

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[kjj]

Just had a thought: Merchants wouldn't need to hedge against 24 hours of movement if they had something that I don't think currently exists... If one of the exchanges or perhaps a third party created some kind of merchant services API that automatically sold the incoming BTC at the current market rate the instant they hit 6 confirmations then merchants would only have to hedge against ~1 hour worth of market movement.

At present you could probably hack something together using MtGox's merchant service API and their trade API (basically make a bot that checks BTC balance and sells if > 0) but a polished product not requiring programming skills would be much better. Better still would be a similar service run directly by the exchange themselves... Is MagicalTux or Jered around?  

The existing APIs can do this.

[Earthlite Organics]

That's why I sell my wick for bitcoin!

Priced the same as, or cheaper than, my US dollar retail price.

[ampirebus]

OP- Get off your high horse.

Vendors who offer the same goods as other retails are not selling volume in the gazillions. Large retailers can sell at razor thin margins, and I find it amazing you would compare a start-up to NewEgg? Of course small operations will cost more. They allow Bitcoin payments, however, and that is their competitive advantage. Over time, you'll see prices come down and larger retailers take over with Bitcoin.

"Price gouging" is a ridiculous concept. If the price is too high, don't buy it. If you think it's so super easy to sell at lower costs, then start a store yourself!

get off your high horse, All I did was point out many bitcoin stores are blatant ripoffs when held in comparison to the free market. There is already a perception that bitcoin is a magnet for scammers and operating a "service" which charges asinine prices and little to no service in the name of bitcoin is not exactly helping. There is absolutely no reason to treat consumers in such a manner unless one has absolutely no ethical understanding or morals. Are morals a requirement in the free market? No. But it won't get consumers beating down your door trying to give you money either.

The comparison to the store in the OP and newegg was because most likely he is just ordering from newegg himself and drop shipping it to the ordering address instead of his own, NOT comparing newegg and his store as a whole.


Consumers have rights and your post makes me question your general sanity if you are adverse to said rights. I would expect a 6%-7% markup to get his beak wet at most but every single item is gouged ridiculously. Especially when held in comparison to other bitcoin merchants that have stepped forward in this topic so far and advertised their services! There are great merchants out there and at the end of the day we need more of them with more business.


Merchants don't need to hedge any bets on the cost of Bitcoins as mtgox merchant api instantly transfers USD$ at the current rate with no buy or sell trade orders. If you are a merchant and accepting BTC that way, there is absolutely no way to lose money on exchange rates going up and down as you get the locked in rate at the time of the transaction. Watch an explanation from mtgox on the bitcoin show here if you have not heard of this yet: http://www.youtube.com/user/vlogwrap#p/u/7/KJAiGcKFtuE

[Littleshop]

Merchants don't need to hedge any bets on the cost of Bitcoins as mtgox merchant api instantly transfers USD$ at the current rate with no buy or sell trade orders. If you are a merchant and accepting BTC that way, there is absolutely no way to lose money on exchange rates going up and down as you get the locked in rate at the time of the transaction. Watch an explanation from mtgox on the bitcoin show here if you have not heard of this yet: http://www.youtube.com/user/vlogwrap#p/u/7/KJAiGcKFtuE

This is good information, but it is new.  Not everyone knows or has the ability to do this yet.  This should allow bitcoin shows to have lower prices long term as they can count on a pretty close dollar value from the sale.  I do see prices lowering slowly for bitcoin vendors and when we have stable prices and people are not trying to sell the hottest video cards that are in short supply we should see some good deals.

[dancupid]

I'm offering 25% discount on current exchange rates for anyone who pays with bitcoin on my eBay store (including shipping).
I've had no interest so far - I think anyone who owns bitcoins calculates their cost (ie time) in buying bitcoins and makes a decision based on that. Even a 25% discount doesn't represent the true value of the bitcoins to the owner of the bitcoins. Anyone using a 1:1 exchange in their pricing has no chance.
Bitcoins are worth more than dollars/pounds/euros even at the current exchange rate (I can just use my $£ - why waste my bitcoins?).

(If you want a link to my eBay shop message me or see my post in the trading section)

[nighteyes]

I dont know that anything is needed,a fool and his money are soon parted. These bitcoin markets cater to socialists and criminals. Over the long run, this forces bitcoin to collapse in value so its no big deal....the bitcoins are still there, and new buyers step in. If they repeat the same mistakes...bingo.

Even if the items were sold for the same price, all that does is make the exchanges richer. You would be really paying for the items in dollars in the big picture, but also playing an expensive game of currency conversion. Fighting against the dollar is absolute nuts.You got little joe talking about how to trust Jim over a game of trading bitcoins when both of them are dependent on the US dollar. The only way to combat this imbalance is to subsidize it...with little Joe excited about sticking it to the man. Eventually he loses interest after loss after loss. Gox nervously holds onto an increasing stack of worthless bitcoins since effectively, there is no liquity for a mass sale....its like China holding US dollars, the more Gox holds the more Gox will cause the market to collapse later, but if Gox converts bitcoins to dollars, Gox is going to cause a panic and expose that the emperor is wearing few clothes.

Meanwhile little Joe is fretting over a US dollar collapse, when if it does there will just be a new strong dollar...meanwhile little joe is trying to reinvent the wheel...yeah he trusts person X, who he has no idea of who he is, but doesnt trust the US government with hundreds of thousands of soliders strong, with a open judicial system and lawmaking framework[saracasm].

[nighteyes]

Merchants don't need to hedge any bets on the cost of Bitcoins as mtgox merchant api instantly transfers USD$ at the current rate with no buy or sell trade orders. If you are a merchant and accepting BTC that way, there is absolutely no way to lose money on exchange rates going up and down as you get the locked in rate at the time of the transaction.

They still have to mark up costs to pay Gox. The buyer gets to pay as well. They could just exchange US dollars, but I guess thats too hard ;-)
Then buyer says 'well I like to be confidential'...LOL, and I thought it was the bitcoin that was confidential, not the buyer..it just shows you what an easy target these buyers are.

And a big thanks to these buyers for driving up the maintenance requirements of the blockchain...like throwing rocks in a pond..'well look at that'.

[Trader Steve]

There's also an issue of currency stability for resale of items with a real cost priced in fiat. Over the last 4 hours the median price has been ~10.92 USD/BTC with a standard deviation of ±0.41. That's about a 3.75% variation over just four hours and this in a market that is substantially more stable than it ever has been. Think about it - 3.75% market movement in about 4 hours comes to 0.938% per hour. If a merchant sells products 24 hours a day on the internet and liquidates to USD once per day (not an unreasonable timeframe really) then they could potentially incur 0.938% * 24 = 22.527% loss - and that's without breaking out of reasonable bands in the relatively stable market we've got today.

We've also seen that BTC is prone to spikes and crashes that could destroy small businesses in an instant. Imagine as an individual seller that someone buys your shiny new 6990 off of you for 32 BTC back when 1 BTC was 31 USD. This is a big purchase so naturally the buyer wants escrow, which is reasonable. By the time escrow clears you're at $10 per BTC and you've now sold that card for $322.58. Now imagine that times a thousand and understand why businesses HAVE to charge 20% markup or more just to offer product in bitcoins.

If you have any cost in USD you MUST mark up your product significantly to at least cover your costs in case of market crashes. Even then you still lose money in the event of a 31->10 crash like we saw earlier.

+1

[Phinnaeus Gage]

That's why I sell my wick for bitcoin!

Priced the same as, or cheaper than, my US dollar retail price.

Nice looking site you have there. I do have one question. Are you from India? The reason I ask, is because I spent 3 weeks there back in 1990 touring the country. I loved India. My second wife was from India (can you guess why I was in India?) She's a good woman with two great boys. There lives are now completely different then if they didn't have the opportunity to come to America, thanks to me.

[kgo]

I recently wanted to make some purchases to show my good faith in bitcoin from the marketplace, or bitcoin retail online stores.

However, it has come to my attention that pretty much everyone operating a "bitcoin shopping cart" service is merely offering the same items for sale on newegg or amazon or insert big box retailer here, and are charging 15-20% markup (not even including shipping). This is insulting and I would like to point out to everyone else who are bitcoin enthusiasts that we not support these sites taking advantage of people.

I support bitcoin but I will not support ripping people off in its name.

For example just go to www.bitporium.com or any other bitcoin retailer you know of. Look at the prices of items from high end to low end and then compare the prices on google shopping or what have you. As long as "retailers" accepting bitcoin are going to operate in this manner, it isnt going to help bitcoin grow at all, if anything it will shrink the potential user base who'd buy items online.

I know everyone has to make their fair share, but current trends are blatantly egregious in my opinion.

(buy a computer case on bitporium for $70 + ~20$ shipping that bitporium buys from newegg for 40$ and ships it to your address instead of theirs)

If you don't believe me, just go add items to your cart and look at the totals before check out, you will be surprised at what some of these "bitcoin community helpers" are attempting to get away with.

So open a store that's cheaper.  You'll help out the ecosystem and actually make bitcoins instead of spending them.  I'm being serious here, not trying to be a smart-ass.

[wolftaur]

What about selling the food stuff good stuff that Walmart doesn't carry?

Fixed it for you.

[Phinnaeus Gage]

What about selling the food stuff good stuff that Walmart doesn't carry?

Fixed it for you.

Thanks, wolftaur. Believe it or not, the way you fixed it is the way I thought I wrote it. I must have typed the f instead of the g, being that the keys are right next to each other, along with me having food on the brain when I was in brain-fart mode back then--even when I proofread it.

[wolftaur]

Thanks, wolftaur. Believe it or not, the way you fixed it is the way I thought I wrote it. I must have typed the f instead of the g, being that the keys are right next to each other, along with me having food on the brain when I was in brain-fart mode back then--even when I proofread it.

You'd actually be surprised how many people don't realize Wal-Mart sells food. O.o