Topic: We Need a Real Bitcoin Online Store, not "retailers" who just price gouge 15-20% - page 2. (Read 5431 times)

Actually, I put the image and link for Square²Wear as a favor to Gabriel, the representative of that company here on the forum. I think I may remove it, however. This isn't the first time someone has thought it was one of my sites and I don't want to mislead anyone. BitBrew and The Bitcoin List are mine, though.

π > e (T-Shirt idea)

I like your business model--linking all three sites. Is the bitsquirrel your design? I'm thinking about having Martin tool it on leather, is why I ask.

I opened this thread wondering if I should mention BitBrew or not. I felt as if I might be trying to inject it into too many posts. Imagine my surprise to see others bring it up!


This is a good market strategy for any business, not just bitcoin based ones. I ran a brick and mortar store for ten years trying to provide a no-frills service, competing on price, cutting every ethical corner I could find just to offer a better deal than the guy down the street. In the end, I sold the business because I couldn't make ends meet anymore and was falling farther and farther into debt; no matter how low I set my prices, there was always someone else who was cheaper. Once I got out and could look back on it from the outside, I decided that it is much better to offer a high quality product for a fair price. With BitBrew, I may not have tons of customers, but they're obviously loyal ones. Thanks guys!

I'd just like to point out that the excuse that stores have to inflate the prices if they take Bitcoin to handle exchange volatility is completely illegitimate.

Unless, that is, they refund some of your Bitcoins when the exchange rate goes up in between when you send the coins and when they sell them on an exchange.

That excuse of "well, in case it goes down" is just another way of saying, "We're going to guarantee that we make our profit -- and we're going to do short term speculation where we reap any and all rewards, but we'll force you to pay us extra in case we lose the bet."

Nah, I don't think poorly of you or anything, I was just pointing out some discrepancies in your statements, that's all. I do agree with your base reasoning though, that we need to get more mom'n'pop type places accepting bitcoin. Sadly I don't see it happening at the big stores for some time either.

+1

This sucks! I can't add anything to this post to make it better, nor supply an image. Good Job, psy.

No, I do not give my money music money to Apple.  My last purchase happened from watching a bitcoin video and liking the music:

http://fadedpaperfigures.bandcamp.com/

The majority of it has gone to local groups buying their CD's in person.  Most of them charge $10 a CD or less.  

And your example, beatport giving the artist 1/10 is pretty bad, there are many outlets that give the artist 1/2 or more.  And a bunch of artists do it ALL on their own, keeping the vast majority of the money.

Bitcoin would be perfect for them.

Hey, you might think the shop is mine, but it isn't. I just worked on it.

I don't set the prices, the record label does, and my first post was just to say that the prices aren't more expensive because they can be paid with bitcoin. Other users paying with ATM, bank transfer or paypal get the exact same prices. (note to self: tell the record label owner to give a 10% or 15% discount to people who pay with bitcoin)
As the complaint of the OP was about people pricing stuff in Bitcoin and pricing it more expensive for it, it was just a way to show that it's not always the case.
The reality is that we can't compare the prices on the music shop with itunes prices because we can't buy those tracks on itunes. If we could, then the comparison would be correct.

On a completely off-topic side note: People have no idea of the costs involved to maintain a legal digital downloads shop in Portugal, e.g.: just for having 30 seconds samples for the tracks the label needs to pay €100/month to the Portuguese RIAA equivalent, go figure, wether they sell or not. Add server costs, developers, etc, and it's a huge cost for an indie record label that has a tiny catalog and therefore doesn't sell much  And yet, the owner paid those $150 for the module to be built and opensourced, even if he wasn't expecting that much business from bitcoin users, just because he thinks Bitcoin is a wonderful thing than can change the world we all live in. And guess who introduced him to Bitcoin: me.

You all might think I'm an a-hole, but i really care for Bitcoin. And the only way to see it succeed is if small shops start accepting it, because you won't see the big ones doing it in the next years. I hope I'm wrong in this prediction, but I suspect I'm not.

Sorry about the long post and about anything else I might have said that offended any of you guys/girls.

Cheers!

Wasn't comparing you to apple, necessarily, but the fact is they are one of, if not the largest merchants in this particular marketplace and whether or not it's by me, you WILL be compared to them. I understand 23% VAT is standard in your jurisdiction , which raises the price to about $1.23 or about €0.85. We can all find a "comparably priced" item marked up to insane prices no matter what product we're trying to sell. The fact that someone else is gouging doesn't mean you're not - your price is to be compared to industry standard prices, not compared to other gougers. 10% off a price that's 300% too high is still gouging.

Edit:
For example - http://www.memory4less.com/m4l_itemdetail.aspx?partno=HD-583X-ZNFV&itemid=1462346931&rid=fd_10
ZOMG only $418.62 for a 5830! That's $104.65 off their list price of $523.27!!! Or, y'know, $300 more than you'd pay from newegg...

Don't forget about www.bitcoinworldmarket.com

We don't do Amazon, newegg etc... We have our own vendors and many of our prices are comparable to that which you can find on Amazon or the like. We also have a decent selection of items you can't get on amazon.

Cheers,

Jonathan

So, go give your money to apple, I'm sure they need it more than any of the persons that have shops that accept bitcoin... and while you are at it, ask them to accept your bitcoins.

Unlike apple, that store has to pay 23% of VAT(€0,47 from those €2.50). I said it before and i say it again: Beatport charges €2,57 for each track ,VAT included. From those €2,57 they give the artist around €0.25...

And using an analogy that will fit very well in here: you are comparing apples to oranges. Comparing a shop that has a catalog of millions of tracks against one that has 40 or 50 tracks.

One more thing: The shop where i sent you PAID a bounty of $150 to develop the module that accepts bitcoin payments and gave it to the community. What did apple ever gave to this community?

2.5 euros ~= 3.61 US dollars... That's... Well that's 3.61 times more than what iTunes charges, on average... You must have big brass ones to walk into a thread where folks are complaining about 15-20% markups and push something at a 361% markup while calling it reasonable or fair... I'm kind of speechless right now...

You told me not to but sorry, I have to.

2.5 Euros is expensive for a music track.  A single track.  If it was an album then it would be cheap.  I regularly buy music online for 99 cents a track or $10 an album.  Most of what I have bought is from independent non-riaa groups.  I would indeed go without at nearly $3 a track for music. 

I also, when going to concerts of smaller groups, have bought their entire back collection of CD's when they price them below $10, otherwise at $10 or more I buy just what I am sure I will like.   A Cd costs $1 to make or less for most groups.

go here: http://loja.pmakordeoneditora.pt and buy some music. I promise they are not retailers. In fact i dare you to find a price comparison from any other shop for any of the tracks for sale there. 

Just one thing: The prices are in euros and the conversion to BTC is done real time when you make the payment, therefore your argument that things are overpriced when the price is marked in bitcoin is not valid here lol
Oh, and don't tell me €2,50 is expensive for a music track, beatport sells them for the similar prices(€2,57)

Now, put your money where your mouth is. You'll make an indie label very happy if you buy at least one track

They've got a range of fairtrade/organic actually - I'm the same way!

(That's why I sell tobaccos without all the nasty extra chemical additives  )

LOL love the image

I still think someone should get MagicalTux or Jered over here to talk about implementing an auto-sell feature for merchant accounts.

Does your wife like clothes?

http://www.heidijosboutique.com

 

Sorry for my obscure example. My post is clearly for a very different argument, now that you have brought it to my attention.

Thank you for the recommendation, I will most definitely make a purchase if they offer an organic/fairtrade coffee. I don't touch the stuff but my wife does (and thats what she drinks).

There's an important distinction that needs to be made. Because the currency you used to purchase this product and the currency you accepted for its sale are denominated in the same units, as long as you bought the product for $95 and sold it for $100 you still made your $5 profit. A more realistic example of the dollar's crash hurting your business would be that your remaining inventory of $95 products are no longer worth the $100 you must sell them for to make a profit. Edit 1: Scratch that, reverse it. A crash of the dollar would make dollars worth LESS relative to your product, so if the dollar's value were halved you could now sell your $100 product for $200 - the inflationary problem would actually INCREASE your profit margin.

The problem I'm speaking of is that we've introduced an additional source of volatility between the transaction and the actual profit. From a bookkeeping perspective I haven't actually turned a profit until your USD denominated cost is canceled out by a USD denominated income. if the $100 worth of BTC I take from you is worth less than $95 after the hour or so it takes to turn BTC back into USD then I've made a sale at a loss.

Edit 2: What I noted in Edit 1 is actually related to a real-world occurrence that I've noted and complained about many times. Gas station A is across the street from gas station B. B's tank of 87 octane runs low so they buy more gas and find that the price from their supplier has increased. Naturally they raise their prices to accommodate. A notices that B can now demand more dollars per gallon so they raise their price to match - despite the fact that the gas sitting in their tanks was purchased at the lower price. It seems to me that A could make a killing by NOT raising their price until they have to, or at least not raising their price as much, but they never do. The gouging would be canceled out if gas prices went down again, forcing A to sell at a loss, but the prices NEVER GO DOWN (at least that's how it feels)