As a merchant, what percentage do you afford to lose on fees?

[The Hidebehinder]

I tried to open this topic a while ago but got caught in other things, fees have gone down by a lot but the curiosity still remains and maybe if some other fad hits again this would be again relevant, again, it was though of when the 100sat/vb hit. As I make most of my retirement stash from buying and selling stuff with Bitcoin, acting as an intermediary, poking a bit in every aspect of commerce and services, to my annoyance and as I am lurking in the forum I see to others also, the fees are not a blessing, and I try to understand how others deal with and maybe a way to optimize things.

The problems:
- I can't wait for the weekend to make a cheaper payment, I will lose the deal and the customer
- fees might be the same no matter the value, but if I sell a 25$ voucher I'm not happy with them while if I drop a 4x miner pack I won't even blink
- it's harder to get customers to pay with LN than with usdt or monero or others

Although those risks are always present they have been exacerbated in the last months, it's not nice losing 10-20% of the profits on fees,  I'm wondering how the others are coping!?!
- Do you take a hit not to lose trusted old time customers? Keep them happy even if you're doing basically for free?
- Dropping everything that will earn you less than cleaning windshields ?
- Argue and try to force your customers to use a different coin?
- Go for centralized solutions?

As for what I did is was simply stop dealing with everything low value unless it would earn me at least twice the fees, I would still not be at a lose when I will consolidate all my inputs, I would simply shred everything under  x, for example I'm no longer selling hosting or VPNs when you pay via BTC for under 6 months in advance, I'm not dealing with vouchers or refills under $50 or even $100 if I have a bad moody day as it takes one problem with a customers and with the low returns and high cost you need to sell 100 to recover. Tried in vain to convince some to deal with LN, all the conversions have been over monero and litecoin

Back to the title:
- How much do you think it's OK to lose on fees, just as an example, be it 10% of my profit, 1$ for every 5 earned, or 1$ for goods worth 100$, nothing!

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[Jawhead999]

I don't have a business which accept Bitcoin payment, but I'll answer with my logical think...

There's no problem if you or anyone want to accept Bitcoin payment in your business, but let's not forget if Bitcoin isn't the only one currency can be used in your country, I believe most of people still prefer to use fiat to pay bills than using Bitcoin.

I mean it's just their choice to use which currency and if Bitcoin fee is really high and not profitable for you, you can ask them to pay higher 10-20% to cover up the fees even though it will make them discouraged to pay using Bitcoin.

[BVeyron]

I tried to open this topic a while ago but got caught in other things, fees have gone down by a lot but the curiosity still remains and maybe if some other fad hits again this would be again relevant, again, it was though of when the 100sat/vb hit. As I make most of my retirement stash from buying and selling stuff with Bitcoin, acting as an intermediary, poking a bit in every aspect of commerce and services, to my annoyance and as I am lurking in the forum I see to others also, the fees are not a blessing, and I try to understand how others deal with and maybe a way to optimize things.

The problems:
- I can't wait for the weekend to make a cheaper payment, I will lose the deal and the customer
- fees might be the same no matter the value, but if I sell a 25$ voucher I'm not happy with them while if I drop a 4x miner pack I won't even blink
- it's harder to get customers to pay with LN than with usdt or monero or others

Although those risks are always present they have been exacerbated in the last months, it's not nice losing 10-20% of the profits on fees,  I'm wondering how the others are coping!?!
- Do you take a hit not to lose trusted old time customers? Keep them happy even if you're doing basically for free?
- Dropping everything that will earn you less than cleaning windshields ?
- Argue and try to force your customers to use a different coin?
- Go for centralized solutions?

As for what I did is was simply stop dealing with everything low value unless it would earn me at least twice the fees, I would still not be at a lose when I will consolidate all my inputs, I would simply shred everything under  x, for example I'm no longer selling hosting or VPNs when you pay via BTC for under 6 months in advance, I'm not dealing with vouchers or refills under $50 or even $100 if I have a bad moody day as it takes one problem with a customers and with the low returns and high cost you need to sell 100 to recover. Tried in vain to convince some to deal with LN, all the conversions have been over monero and litecoin

Back to the title:
- How much do you think it's OK to lose on fees, just as an example, be it 10% of my profit, 1$ for every 5 earned, or 1$ for goods worth 100$, nothing!

Now nearly none of the business initiatives accept payments directly in BTC. So, I think, for most traders transaction fees dont matter at all (except for those who use BTC as a currency). The other problem is adoption level. High transaction fees hamper adoption rate, so the only way to get a higher adoption level is to make fees affordable.

[Z-tight]

Nobody likes to pay too much in fees. Cheap fees makes it easier for people to use BTC as a currency for payment. As a merchant you're in business to make profit and not to 'lose', so a general answer is to do whatever works for you and will make you revenue.

If there is no way you can make revenue now through accepting payments in BTC, then you should stop it temporarily. I assume most of your customers themselves wouldn't want to pay in BTC because of the high tx fee that also affects them. If there are customers still willing to pay through BTC, then they have to pay a certain percent higher because of the high fees, or you accept the payment through a payment processor.

[DaveF]

The fees to send to you are paid by the person sending it, so you do not loose anything coming in.
Going out to pay your bills, would be where you have to pay. BUT, unless you have no other revenue and NEED to spend the BTC on bills that HAVE TO get paid then you can do a bit of scheduling to move the funds.

Even when the blockchain hit 100+ sat/vb for a while there will still days when you could move funds for less then half of that. So it was never that big a deal for most merchants.

-Dave

[Yogee]

Can't you pass all of that charge to your customers or at least have them share a bit of the transaction fees? I mean it's a normal practice for businesses to add the amount or cost of services to the product they are selling so you may as well consider that option.

[Hatchy]

Bitcoin isn't the only one currency can be used in your country, I believe most of people still prefer to use fiat to pay bills than using Bitcoin.
I mean it's just their choice to use which currency and if Bitcoin fee is really high and not profitable for you, you can ask them to pay higher 10-20% to cover up the fees even though it will make them discouraged to pay using Bitcoin.

That was the first taught I had, when I read this post. Sometimes bitcoin payment due to its high transaction fees, isn't adviced for small sale payment or businesses, It is usually offered by big firm's or business for payment of large purchases.
     Just as jawhead999 has said, Bitcoin is just an alternate payment method and all countries offer other means of payment especially the local fiat so you don't have to bother yourself too much over Bitcoin and stop your business activities. You can try to convince your customers to pay in your local currency if they are making a small purchase.

[taufik123]

That was the first taught I had, when I read this post. Sometimes bitcoin payment due to its high transaction fees, isn't adviced for small sale payment or businesses, It is usually offered by big firm's or business for payment of large purchases.
     Just as jawhead999 has said, Bitcoin is just an alternate payment method and all countries offer other means of payment especially the local fiat so you don't have to bother yourself too much over Bitcoin and stop your business activities. You can try to convince your customers to pay in your local currency if they are making a small purchase.

Only in some moments, the Bitcoin transaction fee is high when the network is congested, but when the network is normal the fee is quite cheap.

For small sales payments, isn't there already a Bitcoin Lightning network and it will certainly be more efficient and faster?
The Bitcoin Lightning network provides faster transaction services and is very suitable for small transactions because of the low cost.

Bitcoin is indeed an optional payment in countries that have adopted Bitcoin, but countries that prohibit it will certainly not have a Bitcoin option.

[Zaguru12]

Although those risks are always present they have been exacerbated in the last months, it's not nice losing 10-20% of the profits on fees,  I'm wondering how the others are coping!?!
- Do you take a hit not to lose trusted old time customers? Keep them happy even if you're doing basically for free?
- Dropping everything that will earn you less than cleaning windshields ?
- Argue and try to force your customers to use a different coin?
- Go for centralized solutions?

There are various ways to go round the transaction fees hike either the customer pays using the lightening Network or simply bear and use the other cryptocurrencies with lowers fees like usdt and then you can actually buy the bitcoin at a later stage since the transaction fees rise doesn’t take that longer. If the buyer doesn’t agrees with then I would advise you settle with the fiat method. I wouldn’t advise you to take a lose for just incorporating bitcoin payment to your business

Can't you pass all of that charge to your customers or at least have them share a bit of the transaction fees? I mean it's a normal practice for businesses to add the amount or cost of services to the product they are selling so you may as well consider that option.

Most at times this actually chase away some customers because they wouldn’t want to pay high, no one wants to take the hit. The only thing is to suspend that payment method at that moment if it is leading to a loss in business

Only in some moments, the Bitcoin transaction fee is high when the network is congested, but when the network is normal the fee is quite cheap.
 

Mostly it is cheaper than all this payments with credit cards especially when it is cross boarder transactions. The fees are just too expensive for few times that the mempool gets congested which doesn’t take long before it gets down

[mk4]

Really cant answer that question without knowing how important that demographic of customers are with your business, how much fees you can shoulder without the risk of you losing money for the day, etc etc.

What I'll say is — just go for centralized solutions if you really need to. There's really no shame on it. You're just doing what you have to do to help your business.

[Aanuoluwatofunmi]

- How much do you think it's OK to lose on fees, just as an example, be it 10% of my profit, 1$ for every 5 earned, or 1$ for goods worth 100$, nothing!

If we are to consider the bitcoin transaction fee network, no one will be happy to give what is more than 1sat/vbyte which is what we all have been so used to in time past, using a percentage is not what many users will prefer because it will be too high compared to what they have been having before as well except if it will be less than 0.01 percent, having a reduced transaction fee with bitcoin is part of the desirability people have for choosing bitcoin and nobody will have the opportunity of using a lower transaction rate and except to use the higher one.

[seoincorporation]

As a merchant you don't lose a big money on fees at all because the customer is the one who pays the fees by buying your product or your service, the only moment when you lose on fees is when you change your cryptos to your local currency, and the fact that you don't have to do this each time you get a payment is a nice way to save money, I mean, you can wait until selling 10 products to only spend 1 transaction fee to sell those coins.

And another way to save money in fees is by using altcoins, a good example is LTC where you only have to pay 0.0001LTC/Transaction, that's $0.0088. And you have other options like Dogecoin, Tron and some others with fast blocks and low fees.

[pawel7777]

Although those risks are always present they have been exacerbated in the last months, it's not nice losing 10-20% of the profits on fees,  I'm wondering how the others are coping!?!
- Do you take a hit not to lose trusted old time customers? Keep them happy even if you're doing basically for free?
- Dropping everything that will earn you less than cleaning windshields ?
- Argue and try to force your customers to use a different coin?
- Go for centralized solutions?

I don't get it. If you sell goods, it would be the buyer who would get hit by high tx fees, not necessarily you. So why would you drop selling any low value items? If customers are happy to buy them regardless of the extra costs, let them. On your end, you should make it easier for them to accept payments via lightning network.
Even if you're acting as an intermediary, and have to make purchases with BTC and pay fees, you could still ask/pressure sellers to start accepting LN payments, it's in their best interest so shouldn't be that hard.

[Nwada001]

What's the point of thinking about how much money is to be spent if you have a chance of avoiding those fees?

As a businessperson, customer satisfaction is always a top priority, but that does not mean you should be running on empty just to satisfy your customers. If the fees for payment are really huge and if you want those fees to be deducted from your side, this should be based on the amount of goods purchased by the customer. If the total purchase is calculated and profit from the cost of goods is deducted, will your profit from the goods be enough to cover up the transaction fee? If it's not enough, I will advise not to engage in such a transaction because you will be running a business with losses instead of making profit.

If payment with Bitcoin is very important to you, then I will suggest some kind of centralized system, which is not that advisable, but to some point it is cheaper since you can use an in-chain transfer option, and when you have received enough payment from your customers to cover up your transaction fee, then you can withdraw back to your self-custodial wallet, where you can have total control over the coin. This could be a little way of reducing transaction fees, but it's not the safest.

[avikz]

Back to the title:
- How much do you think it's OK to lose on fees, just as an example, be it 10% of my profit, 1$ for every 5 earned, or 1$ for goods worth 100$, nothing!

Honestly speaking, no fee is acceptable when it comes to accepting payments. In my country, merchants can accept payments for free just by using a service called UPI. After the launch of UPI, both Visa and MasterCard are seeing a huge decline in their card services and transaction volumes. They used to take 2.1% transaction fees plus 18% tax on that fees amount. With UPI, it has become free.

So when it comes to accepting payment, I am personally not ready to pay fees because of the available option. The world will slowly move to UPI infrastructure. 8 countries have already been onboarded and Japan is the latest addition. Bitcoin and cryptos can't compete.

[Aikidoka]

~snip~
There's no problem if you or anyone want to accept Bitcoin payment in your business, but let's not forget if Bitcoin isn't the only one currency can be used in your country, I believe most of people still prefer to use fiat to pay bills than using Bitcoin.

I mean it's just their choice to use which currency and if Bitcoin fee is really high and not profitable for you, you can ask them to pay higher 10-20% to cover up the fees even though it will make them discouraged to pay using Bitcoin.

That's correct, but I think it'll be profitable only if they implement a Lightning Network. It's because with LN, transactions can be sent without incurring high fees, which is important considering Bitcoin's current high fees. Otherwise it might not be very profitable for businesses as far as I know.

There are several alternative ways to handle this situation. For example, as you mentioned they could use fiat currency instead or they might choose to use another crypto with lower fees, such as Litecoin.

[flyingcarpet]

- How much do you think it's OK to lose on fees, just as an example, be it 10% of my profit, 1$ for every 5 earned, or 1$ for goods worth 100$, nothing!

In my opinion, it is best to calculate how much share you can allocate for payments according to your own economy. If I say 10% or 20% here, it doesn't mean anything. You need to do this calculation in order to maximize your profit by creating the income and expense balance yourself.

What I don't understand is that your only loss is the fee you pay when converting crypto into your local currency. If you want to tell that you have paid this fee every time, you can start withdrawing your money on a weekly or monthly basis. You convert more volumes of money at once.

[SamReomo]

If your business is huge and the amount of money you earn is very high than Bitcoin is the best option for the payments, but if your business isn't huge and you hardly earn enough to fulfill the needs of your family and enjoy your life with family then in that case you should opt for another payment option.

If your business is a local business type than you should use fiat for that purpose because you won't lose anything in fees, however if you business is worldwide then you can use other crypto-currencies as payment method. In such case LTC is preferable because its fees are quite low and can be a useful option in current times. I often prefer LTC for transactions that are of low value, for example I prefer LTC over BTC for transactions below $10, and I'm quite sure that many others are also doing the same.

[CryptoHeadlineNews]

Back to the title:
- How much do you think it's OK to lose on fees, just as an example, be it 10% of my profit, 1$ for every 5 earned, or 1$ for goods worth 100$, nothing!

For me, the amount of fee I can afford to pay on a Bitcoin transaction will strictly depend on how urgent the deal is to me because, on a normal day, I can afford to pay between 1-5% of my Bitcoin as a fee, but in case of a worst-case scenario where Bitcoin is my only option, I can also afford to pay 5-10%, but anything more than 10% I will opt out for a different means of making payment. Because I can remember a few weeks ago when the fee for Bitcoin transactions was very high, and what I did was that I didn't touch my Bitcoin throughout that period, as I was still having some fiat in my bank account for use, and it did help me to save more and spend less.

[Blitzboy]

Struggling with Bitcoin transaction costs? You're in good company—it's a universal issue. Walking the line between profits and client rapport—it's a high-wire act.

Ever thought about SegWit? It curtails transaction heft and fees. Might not be a silver bullet, but it's a pathway. Thinking about alternative coins? That's your play, leader. Bitcoin and blockchain glitter with potential, but they're green. Bitcoin's tenacity and incessant innovation spark faith.

Steering customers towards the Lightning Network? It's an uphill climb due to complexity. But, how about dangling a carrot for its usage