Topic: Need volunteers to get big chain Grocery stores in America to accept bitcoin (Read 2163 times)

Developers must develop a magnetic strip card reader/writer to function with their cryptocurrency.
https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/magnetic-strip-card-reader-to-function-with-their-cryptocurrency-767779

Unless grocery stores accept BTC for reloadable store gift cards like Starbucks'. Load in advance of checkout at a kiosk.

I think grocery stores will likely be one of the last industries to accept bitcoin.

They are simply too low margin of a business to be taking on these types of risks.

Checkout clerks are low wage employees and may not be able to spot a scam when someone says they sent the coins but didn't. Nor would they be able to spot similar/other scams.

They would need to accept 0/unconfirmed transactions as the line must move relatively quickly and waiting even 10 minutes for 1 confirmation would be an enormous cost. This opens them up to potential double spending attacks. The low margins on their products makes this matter more then a retailer that makes a 20 or a 30 percent margin on their goods.

Sorry. Some of us want to be able to live mainly on Bitcoin. Gyft helps a lot with that. When they convert to government money is of little concern to me, that's their own funeral.

I have always been in the mindset of hoarders, but often I need cigarette money hehe. so I would def use bitcoins to buy smokes!
we just need 7/11 to accept them.

It would probably make sense to target (no pun intended) the companies' online sales segments first. And I'm sure bitpay and others are already talking with them about it.

Gyft is off topic. My comments and the topic of this thread are about actual Bitcoin acceptance. Gyft is a prepaid card that happens to be funded by among other things, bitcoin.

I buy a few things there. Oil changes and tires along with household stuff like garbage bags and soap etc.

That would be good too but I'd like them to just take Bitcoin directly. I wouldn't buy anything there with Bitcoin because all their products are Chinese shit but can you imagine how much our investment would appreciate overnight!

For me it is a combination of the two. I would be willing to pay the fees to convert my fiat to bit coin before shopping. If I could use it for every day stuff and bills I would convert my entire paycheck each time. 

We need to push Walmart to start accepting Gyft again.

Walmart is the retailer you want to accept Bitcoin.

You can already shop at Target using bitcoins.

http://www.gyft.com/buy-gift-card/target-giftcard/

This can be done in every grocery store.

The question is...do you want a grocery store to accept bitcoin so you can spend your bitcoins at the store...or do you just want a grocery store to accept bitcoin so the price will go up on your "investment"?

I like the sound of this idea - are you suggesting something like a 'bitcoin giftcard', meaning a one-time use address loaded on a card or phone app with a QR code to scan?  How does this differ from me scanning my regular use wallet QR code?

Absolutely. Grocery stores to insane amounts of payment volume. They also enjoy the lowest payment processing fees due to that volume.

I previously worked in the payment processing industry with many years focused on grocery. I can say without a doubt that grocery stores will not do anything that will slow down their checkout lanes. That means that bitcoin payments must be integrated into their POS (read my blog about it) and be almost transparent to the cashier. Target is in theory a good target () for calls of Bitcoin support but I think they are be too big of a company to sway. Either they will decide to do it, or they will decide not to. Maybe the burn of the recent hack is enough.

There are TONS of small to medium independent chains of grocery stores all around the country. Those are more likely to try something new, but again, only if it's integrated into the POS they use today. These small to medium companies use NCR, Retalix, fujitsu, and a number of other POS systems. Support could be added to these without introducing new hardware by printing a unique QR code on the receipt and development to make the system aware of when the transaction hits the block chain.

The thing is, grocery stores are the most vocal about payments issues. They're sensitive to long authorization times or system outages because their customers are sensitive to them. I suspect it's because they spent all this time packing the cart with groceries and there is usually always a line of people at the check out lane.  If the authorization isn't going through as fast as they expect, embarrassment and primal instincts begin to kick in and it's like backing a wild animal into a corner And that is just the regular customers. When you start dealing with the EBT card holders, kick that reaction up a notch or three. Ok I'm exaggerating some but they will absolutely lose customers over outages.

Anyway, my point is that customers are used to getting authorizations in under 3 seconds and many of these store chains have dedicated network connections to their payments processor to ensure it. How many times have you sent a bitcoin transaction and had it take 10 seconds to show up on the network? Not a confirmation, just unconfirmed. That shit would not fly in the grocery business. No matter how much they save, they will not start using a technology that is inconsistent in what would amount to "approval" times. The reason is that payments issues piss the customers off so much that they will walk out, leave the groceries in the cart, and never come back.

There are nuances to the payments industry that many don't understand and this is one of them. Bitcoin just isn't ready for grocery.

In my opinion the most likely adoption path will be...
Ecommerce
micro-merchants (square)
Food and Beverage
Brick and Mortar Retail
Petroleum
Grocery

Whilst it would be great to see Bitcoin usable in more contexts I think people should not forget that if huge chain stores actually did decide to accept Bitcoin then the next problem would be that it could very well *bring the Bitcoin network to its knees*.

Bitcoin can only handle 7 TPS (at the most) currently whereas other payment networks handle over 1000 TPS.

Exactly. Demonstrate that there is a demand and they will endeavor to fill it.

The one to target first would be a chain that accepts gift cards, even better a gift card that can be scanned from your cell phone.

That way the first step can be made showing that people are willing to pay bitcoins at their store.

Yes, it would have to be an organized out reach and we would have to demonstrate that there are enough bit coin holders in an area to make it worth the expense of setting up.