Topic: How merchants accepting Bitcoin can benefit from dips and drops :) (Read 189 times)

Well, that's a good idea! But I am not sure if merchants using existing bitcoin payment gateway, can actually implement this! The gateways need to be ready for such promotional activities.

Also there's a significant chances of making loss for the merchants, especially those merchants who play within a thin profit margin. Price volatility can seriously affect them. But if it's for a startup who are currently in a "cash burning" stage, can make use of such promotions to acquire customers if there's significant price movement.

Except most merchants who aren't giant MNCs run on very small margins with very strict lines of credit. So they need everything settled in fiat. The BTC only merchs definitely take bigger risks, but they probably run on capital and without credit.

You're already running a business, commerce, you do not want to also try trading. You just want to make it easy for people to pay, and then settle and run for volume.

Companies that have accept bitcoin as a payment (at least in the past), have been using automatic 3rd party converters as payment option where those businesses just get the money out of it and that bitcoin is automatically dumped into the market by that 3rd party. So these businesses don't even see the crypto. And holding btc as a payment is inconvenient because of many reasons, but just the complexity of the accounting and taxes is a good reason for avoiding that extra work.

Even normal accounting is complex enough and all successful businesses are hiring accounting services for that. So, in order to deal with bitcoin, these businesses would need to hire specialized new accounting firms that understand crypto taxes to deal with their ledgers.

Doesn't that also leave the sellers vulnerable to loss of value? Since if they are to take advantage of crypto payments it also entails the idea that they have to also accept that there will be days that even when they are able to sell a lot of stuff, loss of value due to price dumps will be at play and they may end up with even less of the money that they had when they set up shop. One way they could stop this is with actively changing price tags but that is bad for business and I can only imagine the better business bureau not being happy with that.

You could also argue that they could use the money they got from selling stuff via crypto to trade but then again what's the point of setting up shop and a business if you'd just use it to trade anyway? I'm not against this stuff so to speak, just have a lot of questions in my mind.

Well, businesses that actually accept Bitcoin payments have the advantage of making extra profit when the price of Bitcoin increases while they are holding the Bitcoin they have accepted as payment. But the disadvantage of it is that if the price of Bitcoin drops below the price they accepted for a particular good, they will either have to wait for the price to rise again before they convert to fiat so that they don't lose. I do accept Bitcoin payments in my business, but what I do is convert my capital to fiat and only leave my profit in Bitcoin, which I can hold for as long as it takes for the price of Bitcoin to spike. For example, if I receive a $2k payment in Bitcoin and my profit is $50, I will then convert $1950 to Fiat and only hold $50 in Bitcoin. The reason why I do so is because if I hold all in Bitcoin and the price of Bitcoin drops when I am about to buy more goods for my business, it can result in a loss for me if I convert below the bought price. 

To accept Bitcoin sustainably for their business, they must have deep reserve in money by either fiat currency or stable coin. Stable coins can be stable most of times but risk is they can be unstable and depeg too.

With Bitcoin, market can change, up or down, and in bad times it can have deep corrections, crashes that will affect treasury of a business if they don't diversify it in other storage methods like fiat currency or stable coin.

Because stable coins are risky too, these businesses can choose a best method, in my opinion, have part of reserves in fiat currency together with Bitcoin. Or they can cash out their bitcoin after receiving from customers like Trump team do with donation from supporters for his President Election propaganda.

I have always been in support of the acceptance of bitcoin as a means of payment by merchants in their businesses. This is just a perfect strategy put in place to ensure that the merchant goes home with profits despite the bitcoin price fluctuations.

Aside just serving as a means of payment, the merchants can grow their customer base from all over the world where customers make payments directly in bitcoins without neccessarily going through the traditional process of currency conversion.

The effectiveness of this strategy depends also on the customers, their knowledge of bitcoin and how well they get motivated to buy at a given price or discount rate. Since bitcoin is still struggling with general acceptance/adoption, customers should still have the option of paying in fiat just incase.

This concept makes a whole lot of sense because it will help to handle the volatility problems that businesses that accept Bitcoin face. Any business that adopts this idea will attract more customers due to the discounts it will offer. But my main reservation is that some traders might find this strategy complicated. The task of calculating and readjusting prices will add an extra task for the business owners. Nevertheless, this task an con be automated if the owners are technically inclined.

I now understand the concept better. If this strategy is specifically for goods and services that are not in high demand, then it is a win-win for both the business and the customer, which makes it a good one. Instead of losing the value of your coin, you can decide to pay for discounted goods or services.

The most common examples are freelancing Jobs. Depending on the client and the freelancer, most of them have very flexible payment methods of which one of them is bitcoin and a few other crypto currencies. Currently with the dip I can see in bitcoin now I bet many persons who had some bitcoins in their wallet to use as payment options are already itching to spend them. It's now left for the person they would be paying to to be smart enough to use the concept we are discussing.

Yeah if you check online payments are the most flexible and many of them accept bitcoins including the examples you just mentioned. I haven't come across any online discount prices yet but I bet some will pop up soon.

Depends on the psychology of the buyer actually. After all, they aren't concerned about being able to purchase with Bitcoins at yesterday's price but they're more concerned about how much discount they're getting. By labelling it at yesterday's price, it doesn't really entice them because they aren't sure of the extent of the discounts that they're given. It might be helpful to just use that as a strategy, but specifying the extent of a discount regardless.

One factor is also dependent on how many people are Bitcoiners and are actively spending their Bitcoin. Generally, dips in value doesn't actually entice people to spend quickly because there is bound to be a correction for the value to stabilize after a dip. If people are looking to quickly offload their holdings, then it could work. My understanding is that most people don't pay using Bitcoin but they do using fiat.

Good timing

I don't see a good chance of accepting payments using bitcoin during bear market like now because by accepting bitcoin, merchants will have difficulty managing cash flow because the market continues to show pessimism.

Selling goods that don't sell well is also not a good goal, because as a professional merchant, the merchant must accept all goods (both with good sales and not) bought with bitcoin too.

I just believe that merchants creating new payment methods (with bitcoin) are for reasons of adoption & new market habits, they must be able to innovate & then be in the spotlight as merchants who accept bitcoin.

That's interesting, do you know any example? I've still not seen it.

Agree. Services and above all digital items (say videogames, music downloads etc.) are perhaps the most convenient categories of goods for this strategy, however also those you would sell for a discount anyway (those not selling well), as I wrote in the OP

That's of course true, but a 2% drop (even a 1.5% may be enough to make this work) occurs every couple of days, so the merchant can benefit from this opportunity quite often. More often in bear markets of course (however then he would have to hedge better.) Of course this "promotion" would only work when there is a dip, so the best option would be an automated process in your shop software (you can previously assign the items you like to offer for this "discount").

My point of offering this kind of "discount" is that the opportunity for the customer may look bigger than it is really and the merchant can benefit from that. For example, many people could already panic in a 3-4% drop like today and take the opportunity to buy items offered at a $61k Bitcoin price, but if you offer a 3-4% discount not many would care (5% is the absolute minimum, 10% is better).

Take the example I gave in the OP: Someone staring at the chart seeing the price dropping from 60k to <58k and fearing it could go to zero or at least to $50k or so. Now an ad pops up offering products taking the BTC for $61k. I think the click rate would not be bad for such an ad

Those people like you describe (those carefully considering to spend their BTC) may exist but there are also more "compulsive" buyers/sellers.

(By the way I think this would even work better with LTC or XMR, or Lightning [no LN discussion here please] as the user hasn't to care about fees and it would also be possible to offer low-cost items.)

No, I meant 2% intraday. 20% intraday is very rare except in deep crashes (FTX, Terra/Luna for example). I would guess even if there's a continuous slide of 1% every day (e.g. 63000 - 62400 - 61800 etc.) this tactic could work.

I wrote already in the OP that this tactic is not meant as a general principle, but as an alternative to e.g. discount coupons, and normally would be limited to certain products. Items that don't sell well (and you want to empty your deposit), digital goods where volume is more important than margin, services that aren't selling well but convenient for you, et cetera. The e-commerce space is full of discounts. So why not offering one targeted to Bitcoiners?

This strategy not only boosts sales, particularly for slower-moving goods, but also taps into the psychological aspect of wanting to buy the dip and capitalize on perceived value. It offers a unique marketing angle, allowing merchants to promote themselves as supporters of Bitcoin, potentially attracting a more loyal customer base. The opportunity to hodl coins acquired during such promotions is a strategic play, given Bitcoin's long-term positive trajectory.

If buyers spend less than the expected market value, who bores the cost for the "discount" being offered to customers? If a policy like that gets implemented, someone would end up losing value at some point especially if the price keep going down, a merchant can't simply continue offering "yesterday's high price" for more goods today. If I was a merchant, I will simply offer things "as is". The price of goods and services will be whatever the price of BTC is at the moment. Price needs to be fair for all parties at the time of transaction.

If price falls after, bad for the merchant.
If price goes up dater, good for merchant.

 It all season profits for those Marchant and businesses that accept Bitcoin payment and at the same time adjust they sell price according to market reactions, this is most helpful tool for them to stay away from risk of market drop that could affects their short term sell profits from payment in bitcoin, and this is a smart move for them to have draft such a method, a double edge gains and always a win win.
But then they have to stay ahead with almost everything and not leave their sells in bitcoin unconverted for a long period of time, because even if the price are adjusted daily, that could only benefit the company for daily sells so in the event that bitcoin prices continue to decline after may be two to three days of sell and the money remain in bitcoin that could affect the company overall gains for monthly or yearly records.

It's a great opportunity for merchants to accumulate more btc by selling their products in usd price so if a product that the merchant is selling is worth 1 BTC (current price in usd) then they'll be selling it for more than 1 btc if the price dip. This way they don't have to buy btc from an exchange which you know how exchange platform works when you buy and sell crypto plus the deduction (withdrawal fee) when you withdraw from the exchange.

Actually I haven't consider this factor but businesses accepting Bitcoin for goods often love the dip more since they are actually accumulating more bitcoin with this strategy and as they HODL they get more benefit from the strategy, while implementing the third reason here will actually attract more customers & make older ones see no reason from leaving if they're Bitcoiners or crypto enthusiast


I guessed you meant 20% or more?

'sell for yesterdays price' only works when yesterdays price benefits the customer

however a straight forward 2%-10% discount to customers that spend with btc instead of fiat offers both the merchant(saving on debit fee and thieving chargeback scams) and benefits the customer via discount(also covers the tx fee) no matter the day or previous days position

its also worth noting that when customers want to buy goods today part of the decision is that today is a good day to buy goods to even want to buy goods today so the FAKE fear that today is a bad day to buy is moot else the customer wouldnt be on a merchant site looking to buy things if the price was not right
basically.. people whom decide they are willing to spend their bitcoin, then look into the goods they want to spend bitcoin on. they then dont need to then have some extra scheme convincer, as they have already formed there opinion that they are already willing to part with their coin to be in the mindset togo looking for goods to buy with said coin

yes getting discount is a bonus. but the bonus should be standard. as the silly idea of "yesterdays prices" only works when the price goes one way, but can cause extra expense on other days when the price goes the other way.. so best to just stick to a standard discount no matter the price history, as the customer is willing to part with coin today anyways

Yeah the whole concept makes sense and infact many business persons who accept bitcoin do it. I think people that panic on bitcoin dips are less likely to be long term holders because of their FOMO. Sometimes many bitcioners don't buy items with their bitcoins during dip because of the idea that they would be in loss and also bitcoin will likely surpass the dip.

As for the discount stuff if the seller should accept the coins he would be in loss if he has to restock his sales items and bitcoin drops by a few percent. I think this concept is nicer and more profitable for people who render services than those who sell goods. This is because it's easier to get paid offering your service then hodl those coins till you eventually are in profit.

Most merchants who accept Bitcoin or other cryptocurrencies automatically adjust the price in Bitcoin of their goods or services when the BTC/fiat price changes. A good which was worth 1 BTC one day would thus be priced 1.05 BTC the next day if the BTC/USD price went down 5%.

Perhaps sometimes an exception for this rule makes sense when the price dips significantly (say, 2% or more), like today.

Merchants often need to empty their deposits from goods which sell worse than expected. So they often reccur to promotions, like 10% discounts or coupons.

A Bitcoin price dip gives the opportunity for a special kind of price promotion: Sell the goods to yesterday's Bitcoin price!

The idea is to benefit from the sense of urgency of Bitcoiners when they fear the price could go down further. They can't sell their Bitcoins for yesterday's price. And often people stare on the charts seeing the price dip lower and lower, regretting they didn't sell yesterday. But with such a promotion, they can buy things for their BTC - for yesterday's price!

This could be a good idea for several reasons:

- First, it's an opportunity to increase sales volume (above all for goods which didn't sell that well) with a relatively low discount. Discount coupon codes often have to offer 10% or more to attract people's attention, and a 10% BTC/USD crash a single day has become rare (even if it still occurs).
- Second, while you of course can use your usual hedging strategies to protect from further drops, you can also to chose to hodl the coins entering from these promotions. The long-term price evolution of Bitcoin has, until 2024, been positive. And often the dip is over quite fast (although you have to be aware of potential of further drops).
- Third, you can market this promotion as a "backing" of Bitcoin's price, making Bitcoiners happy!

Does this make sense? Write your opinion