How many merchants have you convinced to accept Bitcoin?

[Kakmakr]

So, we know that if we want to succeed with this experiment, we must get people to use and accept bitcoins. Bitcoin adoption will only grow, if there are merchants and services that accept it.

How many times have you wished that your favorite shop accepted Bitcoin as a payment option? Did you ask them if they know about this and if they are considering this?

I had made it my primary goal to go out there and to actively convince people to accept Bitcoin as a payment option. They have nothing to lose, because it is just a additional payment option. <Just need a little more training>

We should have teams of people that are actively involved into training merchants to accept Bitcoin as a payment option. <Free service>, if we want Bitcoin to become a alternative payment option.

Forget for one moment that some people want Bitcoin to be a "Commodity" or a "Store of Value" and focus on trying to stimulate the "Payment/Currency" side of Bitcoin.

Are you waiting for other people to do this or are you doing this yourself? If you are doing this, please take part in the Poll to indicate how involved you are in doing this. 

[mindrust]

I did the opposite. I was the seller and accepting only bitcoins and the buyer had no idea about it. (He found my thread via google) I explained it to him, he bought the coins and then I sold the stuff for bitcoins.

Experienced the exact same story 3 times before I run out of stock. All of them insisted on bank wire transfer first but then accepted the offer. I guess they were desperate.  

edit:
See this.
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=4615922.msg41748613#msg41748613

I understand what you are trying to say but your logic is flawed.

Bitcoin is a cash system and it is cash but it also has limited supply which makes it a store of value.

If you knew your FIAT money was going to gain value every day, every month without stopping would you spend it? If you knew that $50k would buy you 2 houses next year while it is not enough to buy 1 house today? (You can replace FIAT with gold, btc, ltc, doge or anything. The answer will be the same) If you say "yes" to this question then you must be retarded.

Bitcoin is just like that. People know that it is going to go up so they don't want to spend it. Any one says the otherwise is a liar.

Buyers shouldn't convince the sellers. It is the sellers who must insist on taking bitcoins as a payment. Read my first message at the beginning of this topic. This is how you raise awareness. If you are not a seller or a business owner there isn't much you can make about it.

A btc user/hodler should only think about raising his bitcoin amounts just like the seller should. And the seller has an advantage in this situation. If the seller accepts only bitcoin, then the buyer will have no choice but hand over his precious bitcoins to the seller. When the buyer spends his bitcoins, he is going to buy more to fill up his stash again.

TLDR; you are asking the wrong question.

The question should be:

"How many customers have you convinced to spend their bitcoins?"

[virendarnagpal]

It was in December 2017 when my friend introduced me to bitcoin.  Though I had heard about  bitcoin few years back but was not really interested in it.  But after the incidence my curiosity for crypto increased.
I being in small city people here are not knowing crypto.  So till date I could not pay my bills via bitcoin.  Also the current situation is not in favour of bitcoin and restrictions are being imposed on it's sell or buy transactions.
I wish to have a tour to some bitcoin friend country in very near future and there I will use crypto for payments.

[First77]

I purchased a chair from amazon.com and it broke in 2 months. The seller is not giving refund or new chair. Amazon is not replying to my emails . No help from amazon and they deleted the review that I posted on amazon for the seller and bad service from amazon.

Do you think people will use bitcoin when there is no protection against fraud from sellers ??

[maichimoto]

I have been accepting cryptocurrencies as merchant numerously, I still get paid in cryptocurrencies, so I definitely put the money where my mounth is. You're right, more people need to promote bitcoin payments

[Kakmakr]

It is definitely not a easy job to do this. I have once been banned for 2 years from a online gaming platform, because I asked if they wanted to consider accepting Bitcoin as a payment option.  

I have also been shown the door, when I asked a "Spy shop" selling electronic spy gadgets, if they would be open to accepting Bitcoin as a payment option. The owner was scammed a few months back from someone that bought something with bitcoins and he took his rage out on me.  

Even, if you do not convince some merchant to accept Bitcoin as a payment option, it would stimulate their curiosity, if someone walk into their shop every day, asking for this.    I am currently targeting a Drone shop in my area.  

[faithofb]

We need not to even convinced any merchants to accept the use of bitcoin as payment gateway because most of them will still see the usefulness of the technology

[Kakmakr]

We need not to even convinced any merchants to accept the use of bitcoin as payment gateway because most of them will still see the usefulness of the technology

You are wrong on so many levels.  Bitcoin has the edge over other Alt coins, because of it's large merchant network and also because they have such a big pool of people using it. Bitcoin adoption might be larger than it's competitors now, but it will decline IF the merchants stop accepting it as a payment option.

We only have the advantage over other Alt coins, because Bitcoin has a head start over other Alt coins. So please stop thinking like that and look at the consequences, if people stop growing the Merchant network. 

[Sonik33]

It's not a matter of starting or not, but it's about permission issues. My country has not granted permission to use bitcoin as a medium of exchange. If I get caught violating the permit then I will be punished.

[Kakmakr]

It's not a matter of starting or not, but it's about permission issues. My country has not granted permission to use bitcoin as a medium of exchange. If I get caught violating the permit then I will be punished.

Ah, that is a very valid point. Thank you for mentioning that, because it is very important that you do your homework before you do this. The local laws and regulations is very important and if Bitcoin is banned or restricted in any way, then merchants will be reluctant to accept Bitcoin as a payment option.

I made sure that I did that research before I approached them, because I have to answer their questions. <Taxes is also an issue> 

There is no harm in asking though and if they do not want to accept it directly, then they can work through Payment processors that convert bitcoins received to fiat currencies. <This is not ideal, but it works for most of them and it still creates an demand for Bitcoin> 

[BitBite5]

We need not to even convinced any merchants to accept the use of bitcoin as payment gateway because most of them will still see the usefulness of the technology

You are wrong on so many levels.  Bitcoin has the edge over other Alt coins, because of it's large merchant network and also because they have such a big pool of people using it. Bitcoin adoption might be larger than it's competitors now, but it will decline IF the merchants stop accepting it as a payment option.

We only have the advantage over other Alt coins, because Bitcoin has a head start over other Alt coins. So please stop thinking like that and look at the consequences, if people stop growing the Merchant network. 

But in order for merchants to accept bitcoin on a larger scale they need to be exposed to lower risk. Besides volatility there is also lack of regulation which all together leads to fact that many merchants are still reluctant to accept bitcoin.

[Dudeperfect]

To be honest, I haven't personally convinced anyone to accept Bitcoin. However, I wrote a series of articles giving information about Bitcoin and cryptocurrencies in my native language back in 2014. The total hit so far is more than 20K on my blog series so I hope that at least 5% of them have started using Bitcoin and that number might be around 1000. To be honest, I don't have any exact data of actual Bitcoin users from my blog audience.

[buternasek]

I do not think it necessary to force merchants to accept bitcoin. There are many others who will appreciate bitcoin as a means of payment. Not only one or two traders are willing to accept bitcoin as a means of payment, but there are many and even already exist in different countries.

[RawDog]

What a joke.  All merchants stopped.  Taking bitcoin in common business is dumb.  That is a failed notion.  It stopped about 3 years ago.  Blockstream WANTED it to stop.  And stopped it did.  

[Juggy777]

In the initial phase it was really difficult to convince people this was at 1k and the suddenly bitcoins started booming up and it became easy to explain sellers why should they accept it. Even though I had encountered a difficult spot with few as they refused to buy it, over a period of time was able to convince them to accept payments and now many are thankful they did.

[Heidim]

I did a quick google search to see if I can spend or pay with bitcoin in my country. I found a great site accepting Bitcoin, and now I just have to try it out.   I will report back on the experience. This will be my very first time buying something with Bitcoin.

[realcrypto]

It is very difficult to convince a merchant to accept bitcoin since merchants always calculate and maximize profit in any business venture. I have convince up to three merchants to accept bitcoin.

[Kakmakr]

What a joke.  All merchants stopped.  Taking bitcoin in common business is dumb.  That is a failed notion.  It stopped about 3 years ago.  Blockstream WANTED it to stop.  And stopped it did.  

I should have made this a self-moderated thread. The Trolls are out again.  Oh, well... we might as well promote freedom of speech to them too or they will run to Roger Ver and Cry me a river because this forum is supposed to be censored. 

In my opinion merchants stopped accepting Bitcoin, because a lot of users stopped spending it. Last year, the price went to $19 000+ and everyone was spending coins, but now the price took a 70% nose dive and everyone is hoarding. If this continue, more merchants will have no incentive to continue supporting it. 

This is why I am a strong supporter of the strategy to Hoard 80% and spend 20% of all the coins you buy. This way, merchants will continue supporting it and Bitcoin will once again rise up from the ashes. 

[1Referee]

None. It just doesn't feel good to convince merchants to accept something I am not willing to spend.

On the other hand, I made dozens of people in my circle familiar with and accept Bitcoin, which they are now heavily into, and these people are sharing their knowledge with their friends, and so forth. It has become a means of payment from peer to peer for people conducting transactions through the internet.

For local payments it's not convenient yet. As long as my legacy debit card does a better job than Bitcoin, I'll keep using that, and I'm sure a lot others are with me on this.

[indayburakday012]

Why should i use bitcoin for payment? I do not think it will let me earn more dumping more bitcoins. As we all know dumping more bitcoins means losing some of your money and it could be difficult to dump more bitcoin especially if market price is low that means you will going to lose more bitcoins in the process of payment.