bitcoin groupon

[comboy]

I was inspired by this topic: http://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=4667.0 and it is related, I just didn't want to make too much noise there.
What worries me a little it may end up a little spammy: "Damn those bitcoin mails again, last time we accepted them nobody wanted to buy anything for them"

So here's the deal. Let's do bitcoin groupon. If your favorite shop would accept bitcoins, what would you buy there? Post it there, let's create a list. If you wanted to buy something anyway, and you are not in a hurry with this, post here shop name + items and their prices (I was wondering if shop + sum of prices could be enough, but I'm afraid they may have different earnings on different items so they may be interested which items). Once we collect sum of items for given shop for some nice amount (I don't know maybe $100, maybe $500, maybe it will be like $1000 for XKCD tshirts , (btw yes please give amounts in dollars)), mail can be send with with proposition of accepting bitcoins.

Then it's something like "There's this new payment method, and there are many people interested in using it on your site, and if you accept it, these people declared to make orders".

This should work great for accepting donations too. I'm not setting any threshold, let's see how it goes.

PS:
About shops. There's this part of implementing payment method on the shop site. We have mtgox and bitcoinme merchant APIs, but to be honest I don't think they are very good. At least in the part of being user-friendly for company that implements the payment (implementation in example languages, detailed documentations, test envs). I also think these shops need quick introduction along with easy implementation. It's not so easy to grasp quickly how bitcoin works and why can you trust it. I'm working on something on my own, but I wonder what do you think about it. Do we need a better and easier to implement payment implementation?

You can find current offers at: http://bitcoinity.org/wanted

[comboy]

I'm still wondering about my orders, but I'm lacking 2 t-shirts from XKCD, so from me:

XKCD (store.xkcd.com) 2 x t-shirt $19 = $38

I guess I'll update with more possibly from thinkgeek

[FatherMcGruder]

It'd be nice if we could compile our Amazon wish-lists. Here's mine: http://amzn.com/w/3B8X6GC7WECRZ

Too lazy to list its contents.

[comboy]

It'd be nice if we could compile our Amazon wish-lists. Here's mine: http://amzn.com/w/3B8X6GC7WECRZ
Too lazy to list its contents.

1. Are you willing to buy all this stuff at once in case all shops from the list would start accepting bitcoins?
2. I'm afraid we need to be more specific, contribution here is not donating money, but preparing such list, which costs time, but may result in more online stores accepting bitcoin

[Ian Maxwell]

I sent an email to Thinkgeek saying I was prepared to buy a minimum of 40BTC worth of goods as soon as they started accepting it for payment. So I'll repeat that here.

[Jered Kenna (TradeHill)]

I think it's a great idea that could benefit everyone.
Maybe it would be better to make a website along the lines of slickdeals and use twitter instead of spamming emails.
That way people interested could just check it everyday.

I'd make damn sure the people offering the deals understand what's going on because if someones first experience with BTC is getting burned it won't help the cause.

[Distribution]

It'd be nice if we could compile our Amazon wish-lists. Here's mine: http://amzn.com/w/3B8X6GC7WECRZ

Too lazy to list its contents.

It made my day to see that you have safety glasses on your wishlist.


Also, I would like to add that I'm pledging a Bitcoin purchase to ThinkGeek, including the annoy-a-tron and the Pocket Ref book

[FatherMcGruder]

1. Are you willing to buy all this stuff at once in case all shops from the list would start accepting bitcoins?
2. I'm afraid we need to be more specific, contribution here is not donating money, but preparing such list, which costs time, but may result in more online stores accepting bitcoin

I see what you're saying now. I'm not prepared to buy all of those things at once. I suppose I could create an amended, ready to buy now with bitcoins, wish list. I just think this forum is an inefficient way to do it. We need something that can merge same items and sum bids. What about the wiki?

It made my day to see that you have safety glasses on your wishlist.

Oh, heh. There's nothing like a good pair of safety glasses.

[Ian Maxwell]

Should we have separate threads for separate merchants? Since I'm trying to convince Thinkgeek that accepting Bitcoin is in their interest, it would be great if there were a single thread I could point them at, full of people just waiting for the chance to give them money.

[comboy]

OK, so I do agree forum is not the most efficient way for this, like for also so many other stuff that we are doing here.

I'm happy to put a site. Site will have a feature to confirm your forum account there (by sending private message to dedicated forum account), so while browsing it you still have some idea that these are not random people.

It will look awful, and it will work nice. But if I create such site (I need about 15h for this, I have a full time job so I'd need 3 days), are you willing to use it for such purpose? I do think it is more efficient, but I don't want to try to spread community outside forum. I'm happy to spend my time and create such thing if only there is some interest.

[Jered Kenna (TradeHill)]

OK, so I do agree forum is not the most efficient way for this, like for also so many other stuff that we are doing here.

I'm happy to put a site. Site will have a feature to confirm your forum account there (by sending private message to dedicated forum account), so while browsing it you still have some idea that these are not random people.

It will look awful, and it will work nice. But if I create such site (I need about 15h for this, I have a full time job so I'd need 3 days), are you willing to use it for such purpose? I do think it is more efficient, but I don't want to try to spread community outside forum. I'm happy to spend my time and create such thing if only there is some interest.

I think it's a great idea. I don't live in the US so I won't be able to get anything but I imagine others will.

[FatherMcGruder]

OK, so I do agree forum is not the most efficient way for this, like for also so many other stuff that we are doing here.

I'm happy to put a site. Site will have a feature to confirm your forum account there (by sending private message to dedicated forum account), so while browsing it you still have some idea that these are not random people.

It will look awful, and it will work nice. But if I create such site (I need about 15h for this, I have a full time job so I'd need 3 days), are you willing to use it for such purpose? I do think it is more efficient, but I don't want to try to spread community outside forum. I'm happy to spend my time and create such thing if only there is some interest.

I'd use it.

[S3052]

me too.

[Ian Maxwell]

You mean, a site where I can register that I'm willing to buy ### BTC worth of goods/services from Vendor X if they'll start accepting it?

Definitely a good idea. If you just make a bare-bones site, I'll prettify it for you---I'm pretty decent with layout, but don't know how to maintain a database.

If others want to help with the phrasing and the FAQ and such, we could make a real project out of this.

The only caveat is that we should try and make sure people don't back out of their pledges. Pledges alone are good enough to start with, but some sort of escrow would be ideal. If Vendor X is promised 200 BTC in sales and he only gets 30, no one will trust the site in the future.

Everyone: don't make promises you aren't going to keep!

[FatherMcGruder]

You mean, a site where I can register that I'm willing to buy ### BTC worth of goods/services from Vendor X if they'll start accepting it?

Definitely a good idea. If you just make a bare-bones site, I'll prettify it for you---I'm pretty decent with layout, but don't know how to maintain a database.

If others want to help with the phrasing and the FAQ and such, we could make a real project out of this.

The only caveat is that we should try and make sure people don't back out of their pledges. Pledges alone are good enough to start with, but some sort of escrow would be ideal. If Vendor X is promised 200 BTC in sales and he only gets 30, no one will trust the site in the future.

Everyone: don't make promises you aren't going to keep!

What if there was an option for vendor feedback. They should have a place to make an announcement that they accept bitcoins so the pledges know they can start buying. An RSS feed would allow pledges to not keep checking back. An if a vendor reports an increase in sales after announcing their acceptance of bitcoins, it might encourage other vendors to participate.

[Ian Maxwell]

Vendor feedback is a good idea---my only concern is how to verify that it's really the vendor.

I was thinking more along the lines of letting people make "pledge accounts" that they can no longer withdraw from once a vendor starts accepting Bitcoin payments, but would have to spend at that store. This may be too strict, since I've just promised 40 BTC to Thinkgeek and I don't actually have 40 BTC at the moment (but I expect to in the next few days). A mixed system of "hard" and "soft" pledges might be possible though, reported to the vendor as something like "150 - 300 BTC pledged".

I'm not so much worried about people forgetting as I am about someone offering to give 30 BTC apiece to ten or eleven organizations, and being unexpectedly "lucky".

[Jered Kenna (TradeHill)]

Vendor feedback is a good idea---my only concern is how to verify that it's really the vendor.

I was thinking more along the lines of letting people make "pledge accounts" that they can no longer withdraw from once a vendor starts accepting Bitcoin payments, but would have to spend at that store. This may be too strict, since I've just promised 40 BTC to Thinkgeek and I don't actually have 40 BTC at the moment (but I expect to in the next few days). A mixed system of "hard" and "soft" pledges might be possible though, reported to the vendor as something like "150 - 300 BTC pledged".

I'm not so much worried about people forgetting as I am about someone offering to give 30 BTC apiece to ten or eleven organizations, and being unexpectedly "lucky".

What if you pledge 40btc and they never accept them or they do in a few months and the exchange rate is way up etc.
I agree it would be nice to lock it in but if they have a lot of people asking for it then it shows interest and I think that's good enough.

[Ian Maxwell]

I agree that taking promises is good enough. I just disagree that "good enough" is the thing to aim for.

[Kiv]

I've been meaning to do an XKCD order for a while, so this would be great. I would get a polo and two t-shirts for $42 + $19 + $19 = $80. I have the equivalent value of Bitcoins available.

[ScriptGadget]

Instead of only pledging a one time purchase, why not allow people to list either items and amounts or a monthly or yearly estimated purchase? That way the site can support service providers and utilities as well.

As a business owner, I would actually be a little bit suspicious of an offer that came with guaranteed escrow by someone else of coins to buy things from my store even before I've agreed to take them? That sounds like setup if you don't know more about bitcoin and the motivation. As that business owner, I'm interested in my market and how much they think they might spend, but I'm also likely to be realistic enough to know that the only sales that count are the ones I've deposited (after any refunds, charge-backs, fraud and counterfeiting, taxes and transaction fees are removed of course).  The selling point for bitcoin isn't new business, it's no transaction fees and no crazy charge-backs.

I think a bitcoin wishlist site is a great idea, and I would post to it. I would be happy to help build it if you don't mine putting it up on Google App Engine. A simple, but solid site would take about a day, but it will be a few days before I could start.  I'm coming up on soft and then hard launch on my current project.


Another opportunity if someone wants to go for it.
For vendors who don't want to support bitcoin, someone else could build a concierge service.
You pay the concierge in bitcoin covering the price, shipping and a convenience fee, she buys your item using legal tender and ships the item to you.
Maybe the service could use the wishlist to find and contact customers.