Author

Topic: Open Bitcoin Store: Free bitcoin online stores (Read 17339 times)

hero member
Activity: 994
Merit: 1000
PUGG.io
October 16, 2015, 09:42:37 AM
#91
i am interested in opening a online bitcoin shop exclusively for bitcoin users , i am from india, the products will be electronics , and mobile accessories.
legendary
Activity: 1106
Merit: 1000
I'm also curious to know if development has halted the last post? Shopify is too weighty for me as I only wish to list up to 20 items, a sample cart with Bitcoin as a payment module. I was looking into the Mycelium Payment System that looks powerful and can be dropped into any webpage however I too am looking for an out of the box version (not to mention the otherwise complex setup and use of such a gateway). Any suggestions?

Looks like mycelium payment system is promising, but i visited the page, it's still coming soon.
the payment system even can use on offline mode, wow.

Nowadays, maybe shopify is the best choice.
newbie
Activity: 15
Merit: 0
I'm also curious to know if development has halted the last post? Shopify is too weighty for me as I only wish to list up to 20 items, a sample cart with Bitcoin as a payment module. I was looking into the Mycelium Payment System that looks powerful and can be dropped into any webpage however I too am looking for an out of the box version (not to mention the otherwise complex setup and use of such a gateway). Any suggestions?
legendary
Activity: 1291
Merit: 1000
My understanding is this project ended when Shopify started allowing its merchants to accept bitcoin.
newbie
Activity: 15
Merit: 0
I am going to guess not since Andreas is now Chief Security Officer at blockchain.info.
I guess, we can't expect much follow-thru for free.

Are any of those hundreds of stores that applied for a site still running? The directory doesn't work either.
legendary
Activity: 1498
Merit: 1000
Is this project still live?  Discussion seems to have ended abruptly both here and at reddit, and I can't get any of the links to load.

Really sounds like a wonderful idea.

I am going to guess not since Andreas is now Chief Security Officer at blockchain.info.
member
Activity: 125
Merit: 10
Is this project still live?  Discussion seems to have ended abruptly both here and at reddit, and I can't get any of the links to load.
+1
legendary
Activity: 1291
Merit: 1000
Is this project still live?  Discussion seems to have ended abruptly both here and at reddit, and I can't get any of the links to load.

Really sounds like a wonderful idea.
full member
Activity: 144
Merit: 100
Admirable work aantonop.

The more spending options made available to Bitcoin users, the better. And you can't beat free.

I hope everybody launching stores with Open Bitcoin Store will sign up at www.TheBitPages.com so that Bitcoiners know where to find you!

We are also happy to feature Bitcoin merchants on our twitter (@TheBitPages), so be sure to let us know when you launch. We will help everyone find places to #SpendSomeCoin
legendary
Activity: 2198
Merit: 1014
Franko is Freedom
Cool project man, Id like to see this for altcoins too.
hero member
Activity: 756
Merit: 1000
When i click on the getastore link i just get a page that won't load

http://apply.openbtcshop.com:8080

Please let me know what i am doing wrong

Thnaks
newbie
Activity: 36
Merit: 0
are there to tutorials on how to get a store running?
Huc
newbie
Activity: 4
Merit: 0
Just tried out the platform. Works great! Thanks for redirecting my URL www.cryptodecals.com.

I've accepted some payments using paypal and currently setting up bitpay to work with the store.
hero member
Activity: 784
Merit: 1009
firstbits:1MinerQ
I'm trying this out but having a few problems:

Emails aren't getting sent for New Order or any other notifications.

How do I add an SSL cert for the cart? I see up above that it's supported now, and in the cart there's an option to enable it. But it says a cert is needed. Where do I put that? I know how to get one, and on my own server I'd know how to set it up, but don't know how it works here.

Finally - if I want to run this on my own server so I have full control, can I grab it all in one easy step or do I have to install WordPress and then install WooCommerce, and then the plugins. Is there more as well?

Thx.
sr. member
Activity: 406
Merit: 250
If you create a store with aantonop feel free to post a link in Bitcoin Innovators merchant section too. I want to support new Bitcoin businesses and merchants. Smiley
hero member
Activity: 784
Merit: 1009
firstbits:1MinerQ
It looks like this is a Wordpress-based store. Your Python knowledge won't help you much there. I have quite a bit of experience with PHP, but not much with Wordpress.

I noticed you want to take payment directly. How do you plan on managing exchange rate fluctuations? I imagine your costs are denominated in fiat, not BTC.
I've done quite a bit of PHP as well, so no problem. Just my own Electrum MPK pmt code is in Python so rather than rewrite I may integrate it.

I always hold some bitcoin anyway so I'm not too worried about exchange rate. It occurred to me that I don't have a very good process for selling coins now that FC4B isn't around, and it often involves losing a few percent anyway, so I may as well use BitPay since they can put it direct in my bank.

To OP: I sent an email requesting activating my own domain but haven't heard anything. Is this something you can still do?
hero member
Activity: 714
Merit: 500
It looks like this is a Wordpress-based store. Your Python knowledge won't help you much there. I have quite a bit of experience with PHP, but not much with Wordpress.

I noticed you want to take payment directly. How do you plan on managing exchange rate fluctuations? I imagine your costs are denominated in fiat, not BTC.
hero member
Activity: 784
Merit: 1009
firstbits:1MinerQ
Has there been any progress on Electrum MPK support? I want to setup now and use this for Klondike sales, but I don't want to bother with a third party merchant account. To me that kind of defeats one of the main features of Bitcoin, that you control your own money.

If there is technical info about how I can integrate this myself please PM me. I'm comfortable with Electrum code and programming in Python or C. I just don't have a lot of time right now.

Thx.

BTW your launch page won't accept a store sub title. It keeps rejecting a perfectly good subtitle.

"For digital picks and shovels."

Oh, it seems you cannot have a period in your subtitle... ? Hmm.
sr. member
Activity: 406
Merit: 250
READY FOR MORE BETA TESTERS!

Things are going well and we have two stores in pre-launch testing.

Who wants a FREE STORE?

The tests indicate that Woo Commerce is the favorite. I have FIVE stores ready to go for beta testers.



I want a FREE STORE.
hero member
Activity: 490
Merit: 500
This is a great project.  I've heard a lot of good things about MediaTemple if you're looking for a place to host these - no, it's definitely not free, but it scales and at $20/month it's relatively inexpensive, so it could be a good option.
full member
Activity: 196
Merit: 116
Entrepreneur, coder, hacker, pundit, humanist.
Axilla,

Please send a message to the support desk ([email protected])

I have passed on the information but we will need some additional info from you.

I can find or reset the password for you, once I confirm the site info, unfortunately we do not enable email sending by default on the stores, you have to use your own email server - this is because we would otherwise be used by spammers as an email generator.
full member
Activity: 217
Merit: 100
i lost the password and login to my wordpress site.. looking to get going on my store Smiley and i dont seem to be receving my emails to gmail for a recovery.
full member
Activity: 196
Merit: 116
Entrepreneur, coder, hacker, pundit, humanist.
Most of them are not listed (as of today 138 stores), it takes time to add stock and make pretty.

We're about to finish work on OpenBitcoinStore 2.0, which will have an improved directory and more automatic listing.



hero member
Activity: 529
Merit: 500
Quick Update: 128 stores...

The directory only shows six stores.
hero member
Activity: 784
Merit: 1009
firstbits:1MinerQ
Quick Update: 128 stores...

New features:

* Custom domain
* SSL certificates

Coming Soon:

* Electrum MPK addresses, for direct payment
* Auction support

Excellent. You are still on my radar as #1 choice for the Klondike store when I have a working design to sell.

That Electrum MPK support will be awesome. I have some code for that I already started on in my github (below) as I wanted something like this for my own use. You may want to take a look. It's unfinished as I got distracted by other things...
hero member
Activity: 810
Merit: 1000
*Like*
full member
Activity: 196
Merit: 116
Entrepreneur, coder, hacker, pundit, humanist.
Quick Update: 128 stores...

New features:

* Custom domain
* SSL certificates

Coming Soon:

* Electrum MPK addresses, for direct payment
* Auction support
hero member
Activity: 784
Merit: 1009
firstbits:1MinerQ
Will try this out later this month for selling Klondike boards/kits. Thanks!
full member
Activity: 196
Merit: 116
Entrepreneur, coder, hacker, pundit, humanist.
We passed 100 free stores launched some time last week, in our first month of operation.

Some of the are succeeding and look amazing. Some have failed to get beyond the launch. That's ok, the whole point of openbitcoinstore is that you can try without cost or risk!

Do you have an idea that could allow you to earn bitcoin instead of buying bitcoin? Now you can try that idea.

Openbitcoinstore.com, it's free, it's easy, it take 30 seconds from idea to store.
full member
Activity: 196
Merit: 116
Entrepreneur, coder, hacker, pundit, humanist.
Update: 68 stores completed and online. More every day.

Have an idea? Launch a store to sell it in under a minute. No cost, no credit cards, no technical skills needed.

Instructions: openbitcoinstore.com
Launch here: apply.openbtcshop.com
sr. member
Activity: 294
Merit: 250
Im working on a openCart store or two, but I might try this out. Seems pretty cool.
full member
Activity: 364
Merit: 100
Justice as a Service Infrastructure
This is pretty cool of you to offer this service for free, major props!
full member
Activity: 196
Merit: 116
Entrepreneur, coder, hacker, pundit, humanist.
A quick update on Open Bitcoin Store.

There are now 64 stores fully deployed. Five or more stores are launched each day using the simple launch wizards.

We've got the process down to 16 seconds from form-to-store. Anyone can now be a bitcoin retailer, or at least try their business and sales skills, with no risk, no cost, no technical skills and no effort for the setup.

The project now has 16 volunteers helping with technical support, as well as half a dozen store owners who hang out on IRC daily. We're building a community, not just a bunch of stores

Join us!

openbitcoinstore.com
full member
Activity: 196
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Entrepreneur, coder, hacker, pundit, humanist.

Does your store also work for fiat currencies? I'll be setting up an art store sometime soon and if so I'll definitely consider this…

Absolutely, the store can price the product in one of more than 100 currencies, including bitcoin. You can also accept payment by credit card or paypal. You can price in fiat and receive bitcoin, if you want, or price in fiat and receive fiat, or price in bitcoin and receive fiat.. etc.

It also supports different types of taxes and shipping and calculates both for the total amount.

hero member
Activity: 662
Merit: 500
You might look at https://www.nearlyfreespeech.net for hosting the smaller stores - pay for what you use so it could be a lot cheaper than standard base shared hosting packages

Does your store also work for fiat currencies? I'll be setting up an art store sometime soon and if so I'll definitely consider this…
full member
Activity: 196
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Entrepreneur, coder, hacker, pundit, humanist.
I'll keep doing updates, as the rate of adoption is quite impressive and inspiring:

Twenty four stores launched since the last update yesterday.
full member
Activity: 196
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Entrepreneur, coder, hacker, pundit, humanist.
Six more stores launched overnight.

Keep it up bitcoiners!

http://apply.openbtcshop.com/

Self-service launch a store in less than a minute.
hero member
Activity: 529
Merit: 500
Wow! Great job, guys!
full member
Activity: 196
Merit: 116
Entrepreneur, coder, hacker, pundit, humanist.
OpenBitcoinStore is re-launched, with a ton of improvements:

- No credit card needed for any of it
- No waiting, it's all automatic
- Fewer configuration steps, it's mostly pre-configured
- A wizard that makes it ridiculously easy - just 4 pieces of information: Store name, title, subtitle, email and password.
- The wizard deploys with one click in 18 seconds.

Instead of reading more stuff, you could have a store ready 30 seconds from now.

The new wizard: http://apply.openbtcshop.com:8080/


Full instructions at openbitcoinstore.com

Our hosting is paid by donations and is free for all store owners.

Donate here: http://openbitcoinstore.com/index.php/donate/

Thank you for all the support.

Our slogan: Let a thousand bitcoin stores bloom! (I'm now confident we'll be there by the end of the year)
full member
Activity: 196
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Entrepreneur, coder, hacker, pundit, humanist.
A quick update. 76 store applications, 6 launched before we froze the beta to deal with some bugs. We will be resuming store launches next week.


To solve the hosting issues and remove the need for store owners to verify with a credit card, I've decided to build a multi-tenant, multi-server load-balanced OpenBitcoinStore hosting option on AWS. We will be funding the hosting from donations, paid via a donor's credit card. The estimated cost will be approximately $2,500 for the first year. I am confident we can raise that from donations and willing to front it myself if I'm wrong.

This will allow us to continue to offer a free store to any store owner, without needing a credit card. We will be able to  scale through CDN, and load balancers to deliver the necessary performance, resiliency and availability.

We will be re-launching OpenBitcoinStore with a much simpler, faster, store signup process next week.

We have learnt a lot of lessons from the BETA and we can now apply those lessons to the next stage.

Many thanks for all the support.
newbie
Activity: 11
Merit: 0
what about appfog? Or modifying the plugins to use Wordpress MU? (Which would be AMAZING) Single sign on for example. Or a "shared" walle where you could buy in different shops / sites from the "Bitcoin shop MU" would be amazing Smiley
hero member
Activity: 784
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firstbits:1MinerQ
Unfortunately free hosting without credit card signup was proven to be terribly abused and risky for the hosts. The ones that offer this tend to be super flaky, put ads on the sites and play scam games.
legendary
Activity: 3920
Merit: 2349
Eadem mutata resurgo
None specific but here is link to list that do ... one may actually be open to the idea of Hosting the beta store projects for free to establish itself for future paying options/upgrades etc and as the go-to hosting for bitcoin stores using your paltform.

https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Trade#Web_Hosting

full member
Activity: 196
Merit: 116
Entrepreneur, coder, hacker, pundit, humanist.
Use hosting that you can pay for with bitcoin?

I think there are bitcoin-only hostings already somewhere.

If I can find a hosting company that supports bitcoin and is willing to offer a free basic hosting plan for the stores, then I will use them. If it is just a matter of paying by bitcoin versus fiat, and I'm taking all the risk and volatility for a community project personally, then I'd rather use USD and specifically AWS.

I imagine that out of 1000 bitcoin stores, 90% will get one order a month and little traffic (just the reality of retail "long tail"). So for a hosting company, the questions is: how to offer reliable FREE service to the 900 stores and then upsell the successful ones that emerge into supported and paid hosting plans.

There is a tremendous opportunity for a hosting company to partner (see http://openbitcoinstore.com/index.php/partners/).

Any specific ones in mind?
legendary
Activity: 3920
Merit: 2349
Eadem mutata resurgo
Use hosting that you can pay for with bitcoin?

I think there are bitcoin-only hostings already somewhere.
full member
Activity: 196
Merit: 116
Entrepreneur, coder, hacker, pundit, humanist.
Our BETA has generated more than 75 applications for bitcoin stores in about 4 days. I have absolutely no doubt that the stated goal of "a thousand bitcoin stores" can be achieved by the end of the year, barring unforeseen changes in adoption.

We've proven there's demand for easy-to-setup instant stores. We've proven there is a huge community of retailers, wannabe retailers and volunteers willing to work together. Now, we need to overcome some of the initial problems and really take this to the next level.

PROBLEMS:

* We've found a bug that is causing the content to reset on Heroku. It may force us to reconsider our hosting options.
* All the free hosting options require a credit card for verification. That is a relic of "old economy"

Our plan BTC needs a Plan B for hosting (and C,D,E...)


I am asking for suggestions for hosting:

Where would you host 1000 stores based on WordPress?

Are there ANY decent free options that do not require a credit card for verification (both Heroku and AWS do require one).

I am considering a paid hosted option, funded by donations and hosting multiple virtual stores in a single instance server (multiple databases). This will cost about $100 a month, but we should be able to host a lot of low-traffic stores without problem. That would also make it faster to set them up.

Help? Comments? Thoughts?
full member
Activity: 196
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hi aantonop, great initiative!  If I can help out, please let me know.  I could help if you need some client-side JS for validation or something, or if you need anymore work done on WP (although it's been several years since I last worked with PHP, I'm sure it would come back although you're responsible for any residual effects this has on my programming prowess [joking]).

Please let me know if there's anything I can do.

I definitely need help, especially JS and client-side. I need to implement a "hover for BTC price" with exchange rate. Not easy...

Please visit openbitcoinstore.com and go to Volunteer, or email at [email protected]. Sorry for the extra contact request, too much going on and I need to use a process to not lose my head!
full member
Activity: 196
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Entrepreneur, coder, hacker, pundit, humanist.
Hey aantonop, I have a new, free advertising network available. Would you be interested in joint partnership with each other so my users can try out you system, and your visitors have a new avenue to list their website. The site is marketuopia.co.uk, you can also list your own site if you like.

Definitely interested. I am setting up a Partner page for additional services.

My expectations are simple and consistent with the OpenBitcoinStore mission.

1) All partners will offer a basic free service of some kind, just like OBS does.
2) All partners will also volunteer to support store owners via IRC, on a best-effort basis

I have requests for partners in SEO, advertising, PR, graphic design and Wordpress templates so far. I want to have a nice healthy ecosystem of services around OBS.

So yes, please join us. Send me an email please at [email protected], so I don't forget this conversation (sorry, many many store requests, I'm overwhelmed)

Thanks!
full member
Activity: 218
Merit: 100
Luv the puppies and kittens listings on the demo store ... nice touch  Cheesy

Thanks. My favorite part was implementing the "elephant" in the demo. It has unique features, like you can't use the SHIPFREE coupon and it is very expensive to ship, because of the weight. There's only 1 in stock. It nicely shows several of the complex and sophisticated features of WooCommerce, the underlying store software.

hi aantonop, great initiative!  If I can help out, please let me know.  I could help if you need some client-side JS for validation or something, or if you need anymore work done on WP (although it's been several years since I last worked with PHP, I'm sure it would come back although you're responsible for any residual effects this has on my programming prowess [joking]).

Please let me know if there's anything I can do.
sr. member
Activity: 406
Merit: 250
Hey aantonop, I have a new, free advertising network available. Would you be interested in joint partnership with each other so my users can try out you system, and your visitors have a new avenue to list their website. The site is marketuopia.co.uk, you can also list your own site if you like.
legendary
Activity: 3920
Merit: 2349
Eadem mutata resurgo
Luv the puppies and kittens listings on the demo store ... nice touch  Cheesy

Thanks. My favorite part was implementing the "elephant" in the demo. It has unique features, like you can't use the SHIPFREE coupon and it is very expensive to ship, because of the weight. There's only 1 in stock. It nicely shows several of the complex and sophisticated features of WooCommerce, the underlying store software.

Cool, nice use case the elephant.

Not sure if you have thought about this but if it is open source ... have you wondered about people putting stores up on Tor hidden sites using this software?
full member
Activity: 196
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Entrepreneur, coder, hacker, pundit, humanist.
Luv the puppies and kittens listings on the demo store ... nice touch  Cheesy

Thanks. My favorite part was implementing the "elephant" in the demo. It has unique features, like you can't use the SHIPFREE coupon and it is very expensive to ship, because of the weight. There's only 1 in stock. It nicely shows several of the complex and sophisticated features of WooCommerce, the underlying store software.
legendary
Activity: 3920
Merit: 2349
Eadem mutata resurgo
Luv the puppies and kittens listings on the demo store ... nice touch  Cheesy
full member
Activity: 196
Merit: 116
Entrepreneur, coder, hacker, pundit, humanist.
Project Update

We have now received 67 applications in 48 hours. We have processed about 20 and have finished TWO stores already.

We also have received 10 volunteers, two donations and lots of heartfelt support.

The website is much more complete now: openbitcoinstore.com

I expect we will reach 100 stores before the end of the week

newbie
Activity: 13
Merit: 0
Quote
Today we started the launch for TWENTY NINE new bitcoin stores
great!
hey owners, don't hesitate to add your stores here https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?board=5.0
full member
Activity: 196
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Entrepreneur, coder, hacker, pundit, humanist.
UPDATE:


Today we started the launch for TWENTY NINE new bitcoin stores.

Twenty nice applications were submitted in full in less than 12 hours. We have responded to all applicants and they are in the process of setting up their FREE bitcoin retail stores.

The stores started today are planning to sell a huge variety of products and services, both physical and intangible (media, software downloads).

I was honestly surprised by the incredible variety of ideas that bloomed out of the basic concept behind OpenBitcoinStore:

Launch a retail bitcoin store, for free, in less than an hour, without techie skills.


We will be collecting testimonials and making a directory of the new stores.

The beta is officially closed - but we are now accepting applications from all, for the next stage.

Visit openbitcoinstore.com and click "Get a Store!". (or to volunteer or donate)
hero member
Activity: 529
Merit: 500
Wow. Great initiative! I'll be sure to set up a store for a test drive when it's available.

The beta test is available now. Do you have time and interest to test a store? If yes, I will have one up for you ASAP.

Actually, not in this instant. Maybe in a couple of days.
full member
Activity: 196
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Entrepreneur, coder, hacker, pundit, humanist.
UPDATE:

Yikes!

We now have more than 200 requests for stores.

That's 200 people wanting to sell goods and services in bitcoin, in less than 24hrs, from one post.


Please see the new site: OpenBitcoinStore.com

Go there to SIGNUP for the beta, to volunteer, to donate, or to read the FAQ.

I can no longer take PM or email for beta signups, as I am completely overwhelmed. Form entires will be handled on a first-come first-served basis.

Thank you for all the amazing support
full member
Activity: 196
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WOW!

We have had a sudden response with more than 20 requests for new stores in an hour, since posting on reddit.

Since the process is not yet automated (beta test), it will take a bit of time to manually do all those, solve the bugs and document.

However, EVERYONE will get a store. That is the whole point. So, I will add everyone to a list, tell you how many before you,  and provide updates on progress, so you know when we will get to your store.

This is fantastic news, as the project just got enough momentum to ensure it's continuation.

I have also received several offers for donations. Since I will not be taking any money for this project myself, I am setting up a separate address and policy for the use of any donations. All donations will go to offer tech support to store owners and for project development. Standby for more details.
member
Activity: 112
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Do you have any more beta stores available, I'd like to try creating a store.
hero member
Activity: 784
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firstbits:1MinerQ
I'm currently selling belts on bitmit but I'd like to expand and could try this out as a solution. Is it ready for me to deploy myself or do you still do the deploy? Either way I'd like to try it and can act as a beta tester too.
full member
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Quote

aantonop : I think you mean your github link in OP to go here https://github.com/openbitcoinstore/openbitcoinstore no?
[/quote]

Thank you. I had since moved the code to its own organization, since this got a lot more "real" after I posted that message!

I'll correct it immediately
full member
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Ahh, I see... I thought you were making a separate platform to interface with Wordpress. My bad...

No, I'm not that ambitious ;-)

I'm only streamlining the minimal viable setup for a bitcoin store.


By the way, I think your CoinGig initiative is great. I don't think I'm "competing" with you because once a store becomes even slightly successful, it will probably migrate to a platform with tech support and professional backing, such as yours.

I'm trying to fill a different niche, really, which is for the open-source barebones equivalent. Just lowering the barrier to bitcoin retail commerce.

We're working to the same goal, and I hope you are very successful!
legendary
Activity: 3920
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Eadem mutata resurgo
Quote

aantonop : I think you mean your github link in OP to go here https://github.com/openbitcoinstore/openbitcoinstore no?
full member
Activity: 196
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Wow. Great initiative! I'll be sure to set up a store for a test drive when it's available.

The beta test is available now. Do you have time and interest to test a store? If yes, I will have one up for you ASAP.
hero member
Activity: 529
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Wow. Great initiative! I'll be sure to set up a store for a test drive when it's available.
hero member
Activity: 490
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... it only gets better...
Good luck, this is a hell of a task! Took us two month of full time + overtime work to get us where we are at www.coingig.com What's your language of choice?

It's not new code, it is just pre-integrated and customized Wordpress store. Wordpress is PHP. Not a language choice, as this is targeted for store owners who will not "open the hood" of their store. Wordpress is accessible, broadly documented and has a huge community, so that makes it easier for people to learn the interface and manage the content.

We have got it working to the point where we can launch a basic store in one minute and have it live with products for sale in less than an hour. It's manual process and I need help automating it, but it works.



Ahh, I see... I thought you were making a separate platform to interface with Wordpress. My bad...
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Some FAQ clarification

All the stores also support credit card payments through merchant accounts, paypal or Google wallet.

They also support bitcoin transactions via Bitpay.

You can price your products in fiat (USD, EUR), or in bitcoin
You can sell the products in fiat (USD, EUR), or in bitcoin
You can also accept credit cards...

Other questions that come up often:

Q: Does OpenBitcoinStore support PayPal
A: Yes

Q: Does OpenBitcoinStore support credit cards through a merchant account
A: Yes

Q: Does OpenBitcoinStore support multiple currencies
A: Yes, hundreds

Q: Does it handle intangible products
A: Yes, both downloadable and intangible

Q: Does OpenBitcoinStore support shipping charges
A: Yes, the stores have shipping modules, up to complex multi-shipper, global shipping with weight and fixed rates

Q: Does OpenBitcoinStore support sales tax
A: Yes, origin, destination or both.

Q: How is OpenBitcoinStore free?
A: The code is open source, the hosting can be free for small sites via Heroku or AWS t1.micro

Q: Is there a transaction fee?
A: No, you run and manage the store. If Bitpay charges you a fee, that's between you and them. If you host it somewhere you have to pay, that's you. But OpenBitcoinStore is just code, no hosting, no fees. It really is free

Q: How much will it cost to try out and find out if anyone is interested in buying my products
A: That's the point: NOTHING. Try it for no risk or cost.

Q: Why are you doing this?
A: Because I want to see bitcoin succeed for broad commerce, not just drugs and illicit products




full member
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Entrepreneur, coder, hacker, pundit, humanist.
Good luck, this is a hell of a task! Took us two month of full time + overtime work to get us where we are at www.coingig.com What's your language of choice?

It's not new code, it is just pre-integrated and customized Wordpress store. Wordpress is PHP. Not a language choice, as this is targeted for store owners who will not "open the hood" of their store. Wordpress is accessible, broadly documented and has a huge community, so that makes it easier for people to learn the interface and manage the content.

We have got it working to the point where we can launch a basic store in one minute and have it live with products for sale in less than an hour. It's manual process and I need help automating it, but it works.

full member
Activity: 196
Merit: 116
Entrepreneur, coder, hacker, pundit, humanist.
Can you store virtual goods on the Server to have them delivered automatically once payment completes?

Yes. At least one of the store modules does downloadable or intangible products.
hero member
Activity: 490
Merit: 500
... it only gets better...
Good luck, this is a hell of a task! Took us two month of full time + overtime work to get us where we are at www.coingig.com What's your language of choice?
legendary
Activity: 1734
Merit: 1015
Can you store virtual goods on the Server to have them delivered automatically once payment completes?
legendary
Activity: 3920
Merit: 2349
Eadem mutata resurgo
Interesting project.
full member
Activity: 196
Merit: 116
Entrepreneur, coder, hacker, pundit, humanist.
I would kill for a good Bitcoin Wordpress shopping solution.

No need to kill. There's one available and it's entirely FREE.

Would you like a Woocommerce and bitpay enabled site turned on for you to play with?

I'll PM you a URL right away...
hero member
Activity: 798
Merit: 1000
www.DonateMedia.org
I would kill for a good Bitcoin Wordpress shopping solution.
full member
Activity: 196
Merit: 116
Entrepreneur, coder, hacker, pundit, humanist.
READY FOR MORE BETA TESTERS!

Things are going well and we have two stores in pre-launch testing.

Who wants a FREE STORE?

The tests indicate that Woo Commerce is the favorite. I have FIVE stores ready to go for beta testers.

full member
Activity: 196
Merit: 116
Entrepreneur, coder, hacker, pundit, humanist.
I will definitely need some WordPress help.

Heroku is free, so alternative would have to also be free. The whole package (WP+store+bitpay modules) will be open, so if people want to host on VPS or AWS or elsewhere, that's easy to do.

newbie
Activity: 7
Merit: 0
I can help with Wordpress if you need something.

I don't care about Heroku at all, would rather have a deployment system that works with better clouds or a plain-old VPS.
full member
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Entrepreneur, coder, hacker, pundit, humanist.

Easy enough. I'll work on it tomorrow.

EDIT: I've got a very pared down version of my store set up.

I have tested three store products now and they all work, with varying levels of success:

a) Wordpress + Wordpress E-Commerce + Bitpay (fiat prices or bitcoin prices, bitcoin payment)
b) Wordpress + Woocommerce + Bitpay (fiat prices or bitcoin prices, bitcoin payment)
c) Wordpress + ECWID + Bitpay  (fiat prices, bitcoin payment).

I have deployed a test store for emorydunn (link in private message). Anyone else want to try one of the above stores, send me a PM and I will deploy it for you. They take about 1 minute to deploy.
newbie
Activity: 17
Merit: 0
Well, the first thing you can do is to build a little test version of your shop inside ecwid:

I'll document these steps more thoroughly, as part of the new shop owner manual, but in the meantime, you can try them and let me know if any parts are difficult or need more documentation.

The best part of this, is that when you do a beta, you link it to *this* store on ecwid. So any work you do, will be available as your store when we create a hosted instance. Basically, all your work will show up, so you can actually put in the real information and it won't be wasted work.

a) Setup a free account with ecwid.com  (it's not a demo, it's a working shop for up to 10 products.

Probably the easiest is to use an existing account ID, such as a Google, Paypal, etc. It will not re-use or "learn" your password for these services, it will simply ask them to identify you.

Go here: https://my.ecwid.com/cp/

 
b) Create a few categories, by visiting the Catalog/Categories section. Your store comes with sample categories, you can delete those.

c) Create some products, by visiting the Catalog/Products section.

d) Check out your demo site at, by clicking on the "Visit Store Front" on the side.



Easy enough. I'll work on it tomorrow.

EDIT: I've got a very pared down version of my store set up.
full member
Activity: 196
Merit: 116
Entrepreneur, coder, hacker, pundit, humanist.
Well, the first thing you can do is to build a little test version of your shop inside ecwid:

I'll document these steps more thoroughly, as part of the new shop owner manual, but in the meantime, you can try them and let me know if any parts are difficult or need more documentation.

The best part of this, is that when you do a beta, you link it to *this* store on ecwid. So any work you do, will be available as your store when we create a hosted instance. Basically, all your work will show up, so you can actually put in the real information and it won't be wasted work.

a) Setup a free account with ecwid.com  (it's not a demo, it's a working shop for up to 10 products.

Probably the easiest is to use an existing account ID, such as a Google, Paypal, etc. It will not re-use or "learn" your password for these services, it will simply ask them to identify you.

Go here: https://my.ecwid.com/cp/

 
b) Create a few categories, by visiting the Catalog/Categories section. Your store comes with sample categories, you can delete those.

c) Create some products, by visiting the Catalog/Products section.

d) Check out your demo site at, by clicking on the "Visit Store Front" on the side.

newbie
Activity: 17
Merit: 0
Ok, then

Would you like to be a beta tester in setting up a new store with ECWID+WP+Bitpay+Heroku?

It will be about two weeks before I'm ready to launch a beta site.

I'd be more than happy to. Let me know what I need to do.
full member
Activity: 196
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Entrepreneur, coder, hacker, pundit, humanist.
Ok, then

Would you like to be a beta tester in setting up a new store with ECWID+WP+Bitpay+Heroku?

It will be about two weeks before I'm ready to launch a beta site.
newbie
Activity: 17
Merit: 0
Can you please take a look at the demo here: http://www.ecwid.com/demo-frontend.html

You can see both customer and store-owner views.

How does that compare? More or less complex that OpenCart?

It does look a little bit less complex than OpenCart. I'd have to actually set up a store with their system to really know for sure, but at least from the screen shots of the admin pages it looks better.
full member
Activity: 196
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Entrepreneur, coder, hacker, pundit, humanist.
Can you please take a look at the demo here: http://www.ecwid.com/demo-frontend.html

You can see both customer and store-owner views.

How does that compare? More or less complex that OpenCart?
newbie
Activity: 17
Merit: 0
A new (better?) Bitcoin shopping cart is always welcome. My current one is kind of a nightmare to manage. If/ when you get something ready I'd love to help test. I'd also be more than happy to help out with the planning to make sure it's both easy and feature rich for merchants and customers.

What is your current cart?

Currently I use OpenCart and the BitPay plugin. It's just a little bit too "much", if you know what I mean. There are too many options and things that I really don't need and tend to just gum up the works.
full member
Activity: 196
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Entrepreneur, coder, hacker, pundit, humanist.
Have any of you checked out ECWID? (Fork from old X-Cart devs)

It's completely free, very fast Javascript cart with a ton of features. It does categories, products, shipping calcs, tax, customers, orders, bitpay, API and SEO. Customizable via CSS easily, but pretty slick out of the box.

http://www.ecwid.com/

The basic build I've got going is a git repo which contains a buildpack for Wordpress on Heroku (free hosting), plugins and themes for ecwid, a plugin and custom code for bitpay merchant integration on ecwid, etc.

The process for a new OpenBitcoinStore owner would be somewhat like this:

- Sign up for a free cart on ecwid
- Sign up for a free hosting account on Heroku
- Sign up for a merchant account with bitpay
- Buy a domain (optional, or use a free subdomain of openbitcoinstore - I'll offer that)
- Select a store name
- Enter all the info from above into a form - Click build store (this part is currently "edit a bunch of files, git commit, git push heroku")
- Log on to ecwid and add products, pictures, categories, prices, shipping etc.
- Log on to your new store and add content via Wordpress (optional, FAQ, contact form etc.)
- Hit "Open" on ecwid and your store is ready to sell.
- Tell the world and watch the BTC roll in (or not, and all you've risked is one hour of your life and no money).

legendary
Activity: 980
Merit: 1003
I'm not just any shaman, I'm a Sha256man
I did build a WYSIWG you editor for the CheaperInBitcoins/Bitcoinmall store but the merchant seeking department in charge couldn't find any "merchants". The editor was similar to the MySpace editor (now) and allowed for something that I called "dynamic bbcode" you could type things like [product_listing category=5] and your css would be applied to the products that were dynamically queried from that category, it would even "paginate" on its own intelligently it took about 6 months of daily work (still have the code) but nobody cared with out any merchants list. Use this knowledge to help your store idea Cheesy
full member
Activity: 196
Merit: 116
Entrepreneur, coder, hacker, pundit, humanist.
A new (better?) Bitcoin shopping cart is always welcome. My current one is kind of a nightmare to manage. If/ when you get something ready I'd love to help test. I'd also be more than happy to help out with the planning to make sure it's both easy and feature rich for merchants and customers.

What is your current cart?
newbie
Activity: 17
Merit: 0
A new (better?) Bitcoin shopping cart is always welcome. My current one is kind of a nightmare to manage. If/ when you get something ready I'd love to help test. I'd also be more than happy to help out with the planning to make sure it's both easy and feature rich for merchants and customers.
legendary
Activity: 1498
Merit: 1000
if you need a programmer pm me, and we can talk about it
full member
Activity: 196
Merit: 116
Entrepreneur, coder, hacker, pundit, humanist.
I'm sure many people have products and services they'd like to sell, but do not know how to set up a store. Easy solutions like Shopify are difficult to use with bitcoin. To solve this problem, I am launching:

Open Bitcoin Store

The idea is simple:

Person has an idea to sell a product to make bitcoin, but no store or technical experience.  They visit OpenBitcoinStore, pick a name for a store and... boom. They get a free, pre-configured store, ready to accept bitcoin payments and sell products.


The prototype technology is ready and tested for one of my own projects. For the techies, the setup is:

Wordpress with plugins, with a buildpack for Heroku hosting, ecwid hosted commerce cart, bitpay merchant account.

The rest is mostly glue. I want to build a front-end to heroku-drop new stores into production.


License: Everything in this project will be open. Code, process, scripts, website, documentation.
Goal: Enable a brand new bitcoin user to open a store and sell in bitcoin, within a day, following simple web based instructions.

Seeking: Feedback, help, design, ideas, code, beta testers (wanna sell something, no cost to try?)
Specific Skills I need help with: Wordpress, WP themes.

Note: I'm out of bounties for this one, sorry. Wish I could afford more. I'm putting in most of the infrastructure work, if someone want to donate a bounty towards others' work, not mine.

UPDATE: License detail - Code BSD 2-clause. Web/text/graphics - CC-BY-SA.

UPDATE: Repository: https://github.com/openbitcoinstore/openbitcoinstore

UPDATE3: Repo moved to its own "openbitcoinstore" organization, from my private account

UPDATE4: Beta testing has opened and 4 stores are in progress... More news soon.
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