Topic: Reasons why mass of shops will not go for Bitcoin next few months (Read 1108 times)

xD I like your precision "but when it comes to bricks and mortar retail stores, there are alot less."

Yeah indeed ^^

But online btc has its success. Probably because merchants already using online payment have already "a foot in the great world of the internet".

the solution. if everyone asking "why is bitcoin not accepted in my local store" went and approached their local store, then things might change.

so here are some steps to increase the chances.
1. do you live in an area where there are people that do bitcoin meetups, basically know that its not just you that would be a bitcoin customer for the retailer you are thinking of.
2. if there are lots of bitcoiners near you. talk to each other and think about the main shops you will like to spend bitcoins in. (try not to pick a national chain but local stores*)
3. group together some useful links that prove bitcoins legitimacy, eg video's that dont mention silkroad but show US/canadian/european senates/committee's discussing bitcoin. links to IRS that show they recognise bitcoin. and even intro video's of how to set up bitpay/coinbase accounts.
4. approach the store individually and ask the shop workers at different times if they accept bitcoin. expect them to say no, but ask them if they can find out from their manager if or when they might..
5. give it a bit of time for everyone in your area to have popped the question to the store at different times (so it doesnt seem like a flashmob advertising campaign). that way the manager see's there might be a true demand for it.
6. if you get to talk to the manager direct or if later finding contact details. hand them the link to all the info you think they will need to get their questions asked and try setting up a bitpay/coinbase account

*point 2 is because local managers of national chains dont have decision making powers, so try out independant shops first

I don't expect any store to accept Bitcoin as payment tool within a certain time period. It costs time to convince non-online merchants that sell our daily needs to use Bitcoin in their store. These stores will not accept Bitcoin by themselfs, they need to get approached by people who are genuinely interested in helping them set up everything, signing up to a service as BitPay. This way they don't have to worry about fluctuations of the price, and they don't have to worry about silly people that are forcing a charge back on these stores. Plenty of benefits....

Implementations of services like BitPay are not so difficult but again Bitcoin is still an almost unknown subject to the majority.

well there are 120,000 merchants. but when it comes to bricks and mortar retail stores, there are alot less.

i think bitcoin works best online. such as this latest merchant
http://worldoftanks.com/en/news/pc-browser/31/bitpay-bitcoin-premium-shop/

they have 70million customers so even if 1% decide to look into bitcoin.. thats 700,000

merchants who are fiat minded(100% convert to fiat) use third parties, so they are protected.

its users who decide to use or not use on a volatile day.

imagine it upto 4 million people touching bitcoin, with lets say 1million people using it regularly. but on volatile weeks not all 1 million people are spending. so some weeks merchants see bitcoin usage drop.

more realistic scenario
some merchants may only get maybe 1000 customers a week. but on volatile weeks they may only get 10 customers because people panic and decide to hoard as its not the right time to spend.

its not a direct "risk" for merchants. but can impact customer numbers

It's true that the lack of stability makes bitcoin a risky currency.
I for one would not dare to accept it. Because a dump on a good day can cost you a lot as merchant.

well thats where payment gateways deal with the licencing and the retailer just acts as a client of the payment gateway.

its only when retailers get more involved (after sampling bitcoin by dipping the toe in the water) would merchants care about other aspects.

the secret to getting merchants interested in bitcoin is not to throw them into a 100foot hole of 10 hours of video's and 90 hours of technical discussions of code. they just need to be shown how easy it is to get a QR code, accept bitcoin and have it converted to fiat should they choose to.

once accepting it. then the more detailed stuff can happen

Mainly shops/websites care about the legal issues as getting a license isn't that easy and they don't even know whether users would prefer paying in bitcoins or not. Many vendors select a payment mode that is used more by users but bitcoins do not have many users IMO.

Not 5-10 years. I've known payment modes that are added within a span of 1-2 years itself as they became popular among masses. It depends if bitcoins can be easily added as well as very few payment methods may want to partner with
websites/shops.

You've stated all the possible reasons for shops not accepted bitcoins. The volatility and legality issues are the major reasons but even some shops are not aware of bitcoins and some don't adopt it due to PayPal and banks not accepting bitcoins transactions. Users now only prefer debit cards to make bitcoin payments.

You put it nicely. well explained. thanks

agreed the sentiment that 'whole bitcoins' are more like a speculative trade (forex/stocks/shares/commodities) much like ounces of gold is more speculative..
but grams of gold are traded off the markets and used for other purposes.

so while i personally see whole bitcoins being measured for the markets. i see satoshi's and bits being used by common people

Agree. I never meant to say that bitcoin is a commodity.I used the analogy to get my point across that just like commodities and fiats are bought and sold in their respective markets,bitcoin is also used for the same purpose by majority of its users

I don't think price depend exclusively on this mass adoption, though.

There's already a signficant demand that tends to increase and hence make the price increase as well.

nothing against the sentiment you are saying, but bitcoin is not a commodity. its an asset.
a commodity is a raw material that can be used to make other products. (beef wheat gold). an asset holds value not because of what it can eventually be used for but because it holds its own value 'as is'.

many say gold cannot be a currency because lugging around a tonne block is impossible. but carrying around 1gram size coins can be easy to handle.

much like bits (100 sat) can be useful, once the whole capacity debate has been settled when bitcoin actually grows in real capacity.

no one is saying bitcoin will kill off fiat. but it can work alongside fiat. much like dollar works along side the euro, or yuan or pound

We do buy fiat for forex purpose.Bitcoin is also consider most as commodity or a currency which is bought for selling later at high rate.Many bitcoin users prefer to sell bitcoin at hugh rate than buying anything with it.It is unimaginable that bitcoin will ever replace fiat but we may have crypto version of each fiat for online transactions

...

My guess is that the reason merchants ("brick & mortar" selling to the public) don't use BTC is that it is too complicated!  Too complicated for the Average Joe to get BTC and to use it.  And the merchants themselves would have to get set-up.

franky1 wtote above that there are some 1,000,000 users of Bitcoin.  There are 320,000,000 or so living in the USA.

I think it is going to take a while...

its baby steps. first you teach merchants how easy it is to accept it, compared to the hurdles of setting up credit card processing contracts. and then later merchants see the advantage of hoarding.

prime example is Overstock.. first they accepted it and converted to fiat, now the CEO hoards like a maniac. and is now making his own 'stocks' based on blockchain technology and doing some lobbying here and there

Ah ok, instant transformation from bitcoin to fiat.
But well, such a thing is a bit useless in the sense that it becomes perfectly similar to fiat ^^