There is more than 10 million items in bspend.com database. Possible to filter by shipping location and other criteria. I think it's not the lack of choice of products, rather there are these 2 issues about btc use in e-commerce:
1) most of ppl got into it to make money, holding and hoping it will make them rich. I think the bubble deflation was thus useful to knock people out of this get quick rich attitude and start thinking about using the damn technology for something useful.
2) The merchants still don't give discounts that would motivate the customers to use btc payment option
What we need to get the "energy" back your talking about is another big country like China. Have we done everything possible to promote Bitcoin in India? There's over a billion of them too.
Doing it... dont worry... wait a few more months
I know
you're working on it but one man is not an island.
There are more people working on Bitcoin in India than one can imagine. The problem is that, they are struggling to get a legal identity and hence unable to come up in open to the community. At this early stage, what the most of them need is "a bit of love". I have seen multiple businesses coming to this forum for promotion and being called as outright scam for no apparent reason. This way, the bitcoin people are losing their own opportunity. The Chinese & Indian can create the demand for Bitcoin that no other country in the world can. But, if the businesses does not grow there, if the bitcoin does not circulate their, if the bitcoin developers can not breathe there, the demand will never be created...
It's good news that there's a large group promoting bitcoin in India. I hope cultural differences between the two won't keep Bitcoin from being as important in India as it was in China. The Chinese have very limited investment opportunities and are very big gamblers. I play Pai Gow poker with a bunch of Chinese friends and they make it sound like the Chinese would rather gamble than breathe. I thought Indian people were frugal and conscientious with their money, is that true?
We are working on bringing BTMs to various countries, partnering with Easybit llc. Got first BTM in Croatia, found location for the second Thai BTM and now working on getting the first BTM to Saigon, Vietnam. I just came back from Mumbai, India and talked to various ppl trying just to find a location and operator while fully investing in a Bitaccess 2-way, shipping and customs. I still don't have a location in India! Ppl seem to be very afraid of the government even though the central bank gave quite a positive/neutral statement. Half of the companies listed on coinmap.org don't even accept Bitcoin any more. I found some potential partners at Techfest at IIT but nothing conclusive yet.