A supermarket in Mexico now allows Bitcoin payments for all their items

[Haunebu]

Great to hear this kind of news as usual. They might have their own ulterior motives behind this scheme, but I am just happy that BTC adoption keeps rising slowly and steadily which is what primarily matters at the end of the day.

The payment speeds could trouble them, but the fees aren't really an issue anymore unlike ETH fees which are still horrendous currently.

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[stompix]

since they are accepting also In El Salvador meaning this business originated in El Salvador and not in mexico?

The business is Mexican, it has subsidies in other countries, this move has nothing to do with Salvador legislation, the current offer is for Mexico, and the division Salvador accepts BTC because it must do there like any other business operating in the country.

As to the TOS for the Bitcoin promotion itself, I’d point out the following:
-   Purchase must be in the range of 5K pesos (240 USD aprox.) to 57K pesos (2750 USD aprox.)
-   The promotion has an allocated fund of 1M Pesos (a bit over 48K$)
See: https://www.elektra.com.mx/terminos-de-promociones (In Spanish)

Wait a minute, so if a bit less than 100 poeple max out their purchases, getting each 550$ in discount that's it?
Isn't there another zero?  For a business with a revenue of 80 billion, they could have pushed a little more money into this!
https://www.elektra.com.mx/promociones-bitcoin?page=1
It's this only for games and controllers?

Anyhow, it's still a promo, it's still a store where you can buy some stuff with BTC and a way to save some $, still a net positive.

[rozak]

must be very fun for those who can shop for their needs using their bitcoin assets as a means of payment. unfortunately, I have not been able to enjoy such an experience. because in my country it is hindered by regulations.
but when more and more countries are starting to open up to this payment instrument, of course, I have faith that one-day bitcoin will be accepted in all countries as a means of payment.
the issue of cost which I think will no longer be a topic for now. it's possible that the speed of transactions can be annoying and create long queues at the cashier. although I believe in its application in supermarkets or other stores, it should have prepared a special payment counter with bitcoin or other crypto transactions.

[so98nn]

What is more interesting is that their government is actually accepting all of this! I am just loving the concept of public domain acceptance of bitcoin and is also approved by government means a lot. I mean all of the government should learn from this for real. What’s interesting is, most of countries who are either dominated by developed countries which are nearby and not taking much interest in their development. Anyways, the point is they are at least starting it somewhere. This adoption might look very tiny at first glance but this is alternatively bitcoins smart advertising. As they say you know, things which are best does not need to be advertised but they do get attention indirectly. That’s what it is!  Kudos to them.

[LeGaulois]

Hey!
 
Am I the only one to think the following:
Since BitPay requires a KYC verification, who's interested to send the personal documents to verify the ID? And to do this, just to pay a retail store? Only a few. On top of that, not everything can be paid with BTC?
There are already more and more people who refuse to finalize their online purchases when they see Bitpay, so imagine IRL...

Its target is people with a low income. If they have no money basically, what makes you think they suddenly will have money to buy BTC?

Sound attractive on the paper, but in reality not so much and rather not very convenient for everyday life. It smells a future flop.
It's like going to the bakery and being asked for your ID card if you want to pay in BTC. You can pay for the bread with BTC but not the cakes and pastries.

[syedzakir]

Well I think if they are not allowing any payments through bitcoin then it might be possible that they are having their own crypto coin.
They might be using this strategy to popularize their currency among their customers.  In this way the customers would buy that currency and would be able to purchase different items from the store.
This could be a great trick but it could also harm their sale if people started going to other store.

[kro55]

Hey!
Am I the only one to think the following:
Since BitPay requires a KYC verification, who's interested to send the personal documents to verify the ID? And to do this, just to pay a retail store? Only a few. On top of that, not everything can be paid with BTC?
There are already more and more people who refuse to finalize their online purchases when they see Bitpay, so imagine IRL...

Not only you, many users especially gamblers, whose money came from sports betting or online casions do not like to share their personal Identity to 3rd party organizations.
Personally, I do not like to verify KYC. But Bitpay is good, they work as an escrow service, Sometimes we have to use such types of services.

Its target is people with a low income. If they have no money basically, what makes you think they suddenly will have money to buy BTC?

They don't have to buy suddenly. Poor or rich everyone has a savings account to save money for the future, so they can buy Bitcoin occasionally instead of gathering money in a bank account.

Sound attractive on the paper, but in reality not so much and rather not very convenient for everyday life. It smells a future flop.
It's like going to the bakery and being asked for your ID card if you want to pay in BTC. You can pay for the bread with BTC but not the cakes and pastries.

It is an initiative, maybe it will develop more in the future and KYC requirements should be terminated for small purchases.
 

[Leviathan.007]

If you ask me I would say there are much more places where you can use your bitcoins to buy stuff some of them are online and easy to find and access for many people but others are offline and traditional shops where they use many possible methods to accept and allow using bitcoin for their clients because the huge demand from people who are looking to spend their bitcoins directly instead of exchange it to other currencies in the other hand this can be profitable for the marketplace to do not get tracked by the government and pay less tax to them.

[Kakmakr]

I have always said that if someone wants to offer Bitcoin as a payment option, then they have to give some incentive to get people to pay with it. The 20% discount is a very good incentive for people to pay with Bitcoin, so adoption will grow very quickly. 

I hope this will flow into adoption in other countries too, because El Salvador has sparked a new revolution ...and if they are successful.. then other countries will follow their example. 

[DdmrDdmr]

Elektra Mexico belongs to Ricardo Salinas, whom, at least a year ago, was the second richest person in México, and apparently had, at the time, 10% of his liquid portfolio (not total portfolio) invested BTC. That probably accounts for part of the motivation for accepting bitcoin at his stores.

The important thing though is to distinguish the promo from the form of payment per se. The promo does have some limits as mentioned previously on this thread, but I figure payment with bitcoin on any other item is less constricted (some products are off-limits to payments in BTC as per their TOS).

[Ozero]

Great to hear this kind of news as usual. They might have their own ulterior motives behind this scheme, but I am just happy that BTC adoption keeps rising slowly and steadily which is what primarily matters at the end of the day.

The payment speeds could trouble them, but the fees aren't really an issue anymore unlike ETH fees which are still horrendous currently.

It is hardly worth agreeing that Bitcoin's transaction speed and transaction fees suit everyone. But the decision to accept bitcoin as payment for goods and services is one thing, but whether there will be many who want to pay with bitcoins is another. I would like to know how often citizens will pay with bitcoins in this trading establishment in Mexico. I think there will be few of them. After all, bitcoins are mainly bought in order to have a profit some time after the growth of their price.

[Smartvirus]

~snipe~

Fortunately these are the few that would enjoy the good decisions they make today in the later feature and raise questions in the minds of other competitors on how they got to grow so fast in the space of few years. This is because, there is a possibility of hodling while the profit keeps multiplying as bitcoin appreciates.

It's  certainly some good news to every crypto enthusiast and Mexicans who are looking out for some way to spend there bitcoin and feel the currency vibe of it. Its cool, hopefully others would learn.

[doomloop]

Elektra supermarket in Mexico recently started accepting Bitcoin payments and is encouraging their clients to do so, as they offer a 20% discount when paying with it (until end of the year).

This is a really good news, and this shows the progress of the cryptocurrency community. At first it started with bigger institutions and companies, now it’s coming down to the smaller ones and the medium businesses. The adoption of Bitcoin keeps on spreading every time, and by next year the rate of adoption would be really huge. Just like someone pointed out in the forum the other time that by next year the adoption of Bitcoin is going to be about 1 billion people.

It is quite possible that we can achieve that with the rate at which the adoption is going. It's just spreading really fast, and if it should continue like this, then the rate of adoption should be very much higher by 2022. I really can’t wait to see the much progress.

[nurilham]

One of the benefits of bitcoin is for transactions like this. interesting to know because not many countries have implemented it and of course it will help bitcoin to be better accepted by the public. that way, bitcoin will also develop better there. many countries have accepted bitcoin but they have not been able to use Bitcoin as a transaction like this. but after this it might be possible to follow it so that people are more familiar with bitcoin but indeed this is more focused on countries that can manage and use bitcoin well. whatever it is related to Bitcoin if it makes a good impact then I'm happy to see it.

[adzino]

Elektra supermarket in Mexico recently started accepting Bitcoin payments and is encouraging their clients to do so, as they offer a 20% discount when paying with it (until end of the year).

Here's the promo banner (in Spanish):

-snip-

Now people in Mexico are able to buy groceries, and retail in general using Bitcoin directly.

An interesting thing to consider is that the parent company, Grupo Elektra, has operations in these countries: Mexico, US, Guatemala, Honduras, Peru, Panama, and El Salvador.

source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grupo_Elektra

That means that they already accept Bitcoin directly from at least 2 countries: Mexico, and El Salvador. Some of the other countries in that list could potentially be the next one.

Good initiative by them. They are aware that bitcoin has a huge potential to attract more users eventually. Giving a huge 20% discount on top of that means that they are actually serious about accepting bitcoin and wants more user to use it. I am sure more online stores and shops will eventually follow the same step.

How are their customers able to pay in Bitcoin? Is there a local wallet app in the country that is popular that could be used for the grocery transactions between customers and the store? I am asking because if transactions are all done on-chain, I might end up paying a bigger amount for fees than the groceries I'm buying. I might end up paying more for my transaction to be confirmed than the packs of coffee I'm buying. Or are they possibly making use of lightning network?

They can use their own wallet. The fees right now is very reasonable and not that high at all. It would be totally worth it for them to pay the fees since they will be getting a huge 20% off. Would be an issue when the network gets congested, yeah. But I guess they will be adding more currencies soon.

[Wind_FURY]

Elektra supermarket in Mexico recently started accepting Bitcoin payments and is encouraging their clients to do so, as they offer a 20% discount when paying with it (until end of the year).

THAT is the best incentive to convince HODLers/Bitcoin users to spend their coins. Because if it isn’t used as a censorship-resistant, peer to peer tool to buy Heroine from the Dark Markets, what’s the use? HODLing Bitcoin will be better, and use fiat where it can be used.

[Minor Miner]

Elektra Mexico belongs to Ricardo Salinas, whom, at least a year ago, was the second richest person in México, and apparently had, at the time, 10% of his liquid portfolio (not total portfolio) invested BTC. That probably accounts for part of the motivation for accepting bitcoin at his stores.

So, he invested in Bitcoin last year! very brave and yummy!! maybe this early bird is able to catch the right song of institutional investment.
Last year the height price of Bitcoin was $29K. MicroStrategy invested in August and then TESLA, after their announcement the price jumped to $29K in a sudden, many people thought $29K
is the limit of Bitcoin and max it can go $30k for a little while. But still, I can remember BTC has made new ATH in every week during Q4 of 2020 and Q1 of 2021. Investors at that time had passed a glorious moment.

Now we are in the exact same time when BTC was pumping last year. So, the expectation is high, maybe he guesses something that's why he open Bitcoin payment at his stores.

[Ararbermas]

A great idea to force costumer to use bitcoin as well. Lol and for sure it will spread within the country wherein so on some stores will adopt  bitcoin because of that reason. that's what it is, i mean that's how the adoption start as it will become the common way when it come paying bills and etc. Big thumbs up to them.

[cheezcarls]

How I wish we could all see that here in the Philippines and the rest of the world. I had envisioned that one day it’ll happen here in our country. There was a time before the pandemic began, I had proposed to my dad that we would accept crypto payments for his planned milk tea business. However, he was still skeptical and just stick to his own plan. However, the milk tea business he planned backfired due to various circumstances.

I don’t really wish to start my own small traditional business, but I really want to see these businesses like supermarkets, grocery stores, convenience stores to start accepting cryptocurrency payments here now and then.

[geegaw]

Great to hear this kind of news as usual. They might have their own ulterior motives behind this scheme, but I am just happy that BTC adoption keeps rising slowly and steadily which is what primarily matters at the end of the day.

The payment speeds could trouble them, but the fees aren't really an issue anymore unlike ETH fees which are still horrendous currently.

It is hardly worth agreeing that Bitcoin's transaction speed and transaction fees suit everyone. But the decision to accept bitcoin as payment for goods and services is one thing, but whether there will be many who want to pay with bitcoins is another. I would like to know how often citizens will pay with bitcoins in this trading establishment in Mexico. I think there will be few of them. After all, bitcoins are mainly bought in order to have a profit some time after the growth of their price.

I don't even believe in a rare case of bitcoin payment in a Mexican supermarket because bitcoin's current default function is no longer in the sense of payment, it is in the sense of future and investment, a user who owns bitcoins cannot be without such rudimentary updates and based on the theory that everyone knows what they are using, plus a greedy personality and aversion to losses, spending in the country's currency will have absolute frequency while bitcoin is kept at zero. Such a supermarket is just a marketing skill, bring noise in the community to gather consumers