Topic: **Updated** Overstock-nears-a-total-of-1m-in-Bitcoin-purchases (Read 1924 times)

http://newsbtc.com/2014/03/13/overstock-com-reeling-20k-30k-daily-purchases-paid-bitcoin/


Overstock.com seems to be doing just fine on the front of bitcoin acceptance. Since enabling bitcoin payments in early January, the company has brought in over $1 million USD worth of bitcoin purchases, and that number continues to go up.

A report from Business Insider, who recently spoke to the company’s CEO Patrick Byrne, indicated that the company is reeling in a good amount of money from purchase paid for in bitcoin.

“There was a huge surge [in Bitcoin spending] the first day, with people showing support,” Byrne said. “It’s since dropped to $20k to $30k per day, but it’s gradually increasing from there. It’s going well.”

For Overstock, Bitcoin acceptance is much more than a way to bring in more business. It’s genuinely helping the company combat significant credit card processing fees and prevent fraud.

“We do a really good job of preventing fraud, but Bitcoin makes fraud pretty much impossible,” Byrne was quoted as saying.

That’s because bitcoin transactions cannot be reversed. Once the money is sent, it’s sent, and it’s not coming back unless the recipient decides to return it.

Byrne also happens to be fan of the idea behind bitcoin and a decentralized monetary system.

“Bitcoin is good money,” he told me in an interview late last year. He’s even gone so far as to purchase several million dollars worth of the digital currency in late January.

“I think our country’s gotten under the thumb of Wall Street oligarchs. They’re enemies of the republic and Bitcoin represents a mass movement to get rid of the knuckleheads. There’s a huge political side to this that I endorse,” he told Business Insider.

Update on Overstock


http://www.coindesk.com/overstock-million-bitcoin-sales-future-projections/

Killin' it.



Overstock Tops $1m in Bitcoin Sales, Projects Up to $20m By Year’s End
Tom Sharkey | Published on March 4, 2014 at 23:27 GMT | Coinbase, Merchants, News

It has been less than two months since e-commerce giant Overstock.com began accepting bitcoin payments on their website, and the online retailer has already surpassed $1m in total sales.

Overstock’s CEO Patrick Byrne confirmed the company’s plans to embrace bitcoin back in December, and bitcoin payment processing officially went live on Overstock.com on 9th January.

Byrne spoke with CoinDesk about its $1m milestone, asserting that while the initial surge of bitcoin sales did subside, there has since been steady growth in bitcoin payments:

“In the first day there was an enormous surge of bitcoin sales, but we’ve also seen a gradual building of bitcoin sales in a week-by-week basis.”

The initial projections for sales processed with bitcoin on Overstock.com this year was set at $3-5m, but this figure has since increased dramatically, according to Byrne.

The CEO now predicts that Overstock will see a total of $10-15m in bitcoin sales this year, and suggested that this number could reach as high as $20m if bitcoin sales maintain their current growth rate.

New data

Overstock partnered with Coinbase to process bitcoin payments, and together the two companies have compiled and released data that shows the spending habits of bitcoin users on Overstock, notably comparing them to credit card users.

The findings show that customers who use bitcoin as a payment method spend on average $58 (34%) more on their orders than customers using credit cards.


Byrne says that Overstock has reaped the benefits of accepting bitcoin as a payment method, most notably in regards to eliminating chargeback fraud from credit card payments and reducing payment processing fees:

“Bitcoin payments have helped us avoid fraud in the form of chargebacks with credit cards, and we’re also able to get paid faster than when payments are processed with credit cards.

It takes three days for payments to finalize with credit cards, and with bitcoin we can get paid immediately.”

Market effects

While Overstock is credited as the first major online retailer to accept bitcoin payments, they’re not alone when it comes to reputable companies embracing bitcoin. TigerDirect began accepting bitcoin payments in late January, and companies like Virgin Atlantic and Reddit have helped further legitimize the digital currency as a convenient and secure payment method.

Speaking on the recent news of Overstock’s $1m bitcoin sales milestone, Coinbase noted that while they’re excited about the growing number of transactions being processed with bitcoin, they’re certainly not surprised:

“We are more gratified than surprised with these recent milestones, as they illustrate our belief that we are near a tipping point for broad merchant and consumer adoption of Bitcoin.”

Byrne hopes that the news of Overstock surpassing $1m in bitcoin payments will continue to build the currency’s credibility and adoption rates, noting that many customers are switching from competing commerce sites to shop with bitcoin on Overstock:

“I’ve seen the bitcoin community really embrace Overstock and I’ve read about many cases of our customers coming over from Amazon specifically to shop using bitcoin.

I think that bitcoin payments will account for several percent of all online transactions in the next year or two, and when this happens, Amazon will be forced to start accepting bitcoin on their website.”

With the amount of sales being processed with bitcoin steadily growing on Overstock, Byrne noted that the company has recently changed its business model and will start to hold “5-10% of [their] processed bitcoins in reserves.”

Given the option that Coinbase offers its merchants to immediately convert bitcoins to fiat currency, this move is a symbol of Overstock’s confidence in the principles of bitcoin and its utility as a means for buying goods and services online.

yeah but you first have to launder the money before you can spend it on SIlk Road.  it says in the instructions

then it's no longer btc u bought, but SEM (someone else's $)

me too.  I think the turmoil with Gox and the malleability issue may have them stepping back to see what happens a bit, and things are still up in the air in terms of regulation.

when the smoke clears, this shit with transaction malleability is fixed to everyone's satisfaction, and it's obvious they can make money from it's implementation with minimal downside risk when regulations are clarified, they'll be on it in faster than lawyer's on a car crash....

when that is is anyone's guess.  I'd like to think tomorrow, but I'm leaning more toward 2015.

I thought more major companies would be quicker to jump on the bitcoin bandwagon after Overstock started accepting bitcoin.   I'm sure they eventually will, I was just expecting it to be sooner than later...

we need more of those stories, so help it happen
https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/removed-470967

Just an update on our Buds at Overstock.com

http://www.forbes.com/sites/kashmirhill/2014/02/21/for-overstock-ceo-bitcoin-isnt-just-a-publicity-stunt/?partner=yahootix

I think coinbase offers actually no fees up to the first $1mill in sales for merchants

Actually, quite some time ago. It's good to see it has come down. Hopefully it is more an economies of scale thing rather than a long introductory rate thing (cough paypal).

when was that that you looked?  Source?

just kidding.  well, mostly anyway.   

are you telling us that bitpay and Coinbase are charging retailers the same processing fees as credit card companies and their POS processing minions?  a quick run through their websites would tell you differently, I think.

https://bitpay.com/pricing

https://coinbase.com/merchants



In terms of Overstock, specifically, which uses Coinbase:

http://www.forbes.com/sites/kashmirhill/2014/01/09/overstock-bitcoin/

of course they're saving money.  they wouldn't be doing it if they didn't.

Source? Fees to convert bitcoin to USD which is what Overstock is certainly doing are not less than merchant fees for large retailers the last time I looked.

I don't think anyone expected them to sell 130k/day in bitcoin, which I think was their day 1 total.

1M in a month is pretty decent, considering the market penetration of bitcoin itself.

even if it falls further, which it probably will, they're turning an increased profit due to savings on processing fees.  considering they operate on 1% margin, anything that knocks that up would be considered a good thing, I would think.

Setting the stage for many things great to come. The ceo should reward himself with a pat on the back for this one. They've brought in many new customers, I being one.

Didn't overstock come flying out of the gates with almost a couple hundred thousand in sales in the first day?   They have slowed down dramatically in regards to payments from bitcoin then right?

Overstock is going to be one of my main places to spend money now because they have a wide variety.

I bought btc just to buy newegg products when they announced. I hold, but I specifically bought more just to do a transaction through newegg. I think that as we go forward more things will step in to make moving fiat into btc to purchase goods and services using btc a seamless process that will not require so many steps and time.

I didn't know they accepted Bitcoin as a payment just because of that I will go and buy some things from them.

I don't think there is anywhere for sales to go but up!  Keep up the good work Overstock!

To be a healthy ecosystem, we need a lot of holders just as we need a lot of spenders.   Ultimately we want the number of bitcoin transactions per day increasing, and we want more people to need more bitcoins so that the demand easily outweighs the supply

http://www.coindesk.com/mit-report-bitcoin-more-likely-spent-hoarded/


Newly released research from the MIT Technology Review, a faculty-run university magazine, suggests that new bitcoins are increasingly being spent, not hoarded, by users after purchase.

The data illustrates that the number of unspent, new bitcoins has declined drastically from 2009, when nearly half of all new bitcoins were held for the entire first year of ownership. Today, the vast majority of new bitcoins are spent within 24 hours, the findings suggest.