Topic: Who is a Bitcoin consultant/business integrator/point of sale integrator ? (Read 1878 times)

Good to know - at the end of the day I am assuming this service essentially costs nothing.  Either way it looks nice and I like the functionality.

Thanks for the input - this is valuable to know.   I am sure it will take some trial and error to find the sweet spot where the location or customer won't question it at all...

Question - what happens when the location has no cash float (ie. the $200 you were talking about earlier).  What sort of commitment or service level are you agreeing with the location to pay them the fiat?   Do you interact e-transfer it or bank transfer or send cheque/etc?  Same day or at end of month or bi weekly?

I do like this whole concept of the model and hoarding aspect.   Interesting.


   

One time I received a participant ribbon. I am far from a champion.

I'm the PR Director for the Bitcoin Co-op and CoinOS, so I'm less up to date on the technical/financial side--I specialize in making people adopt Bitcoin. However, my current understanding is that our entire pricing system is undergoing an overhaul. We are establishing partnerships with various exchanges, particularly in Canada (QuadrigaCX, CAVirtEx). Whatever it says now, it probably won't say that in a couple of weeks. I'll report back as soon as I can with specific information on why you're seeing that discrepancy right now, but my guess is that you just witnessed a temporary lag in price adjustment or a mild glitch that arose in the development process.

EDIT: I just did a bit of checking, and it appears that CAVirtEx has hovered around $550 CAD all day. I think it hit $560 but it never came close to $520. Could it be you're somehow saying the USD rate, instead? $560 in CAD is fairly close to $520 USD, at the time of this writing.

the merchant pays NO FEE's

if the merchant is selling a $20 product he WILL get $20.
the commission comes from the customer side not the merchant side and as bitcoin varies between $497-$520 as long as the customer see's a bitcoin price that roughly equates to the something around that area and does not equate to lets say $590 today, then the customer would not really complain if they have to pay $520ish.

problems do arrise if you start mentioning which exchange you use, which price point and what percentages, and if it was just 20c innaccuracy they would moan and argue non-stop. so its normally best to just keep the bitcoin value within the 'acceptable variance' and not be quoting too much specifics as it just leads to arguments.

after all i know many businesses that quote the most expensive exchange but actually do business on the cheapest exchange. where its simpler to not quote any exchange and just have the prices in the 'fair' market range of all the exchanges.

now then how you would set up your own calculator will all depends on how you wish to obtain the FIAT to pay the merchant.

1) if you personally or a group of FIAT investors have lots of FIAT and they want bitcoin you can pretty much name your own value of bitcoin to ensure the merchant gets the $20 for a $20 product transaction. (within fair volatility range) and as you point out with your comments to the bitcoin co-op cavirtex price was $520, yet btc-e was $497-$510 within a couple of hours of your post which means an acceptable 1%-4% is acceptable by the CUSTOMER, due to their knowledge of volatility.

2) if your getting fiat by selling the bitcoin on an exchange to recoup a FIAT reserve for future transactions. not only are you going to want a couple percent commission to pay your own bills but you probably end up wanting an extra couple % ontop to personally hoard as coins.  so this model usually is more about pushing the limits of acceptable pricing for customers and also finding the right balance of getting the merchant the fiat they need and running a profitable business yourself.

i would advise you to think more along the private investment side as oppose to using exchanges to swap bitcoins. establish a good rapport with respected people on the bitcoin-otc/localbitcoins. even find some FIAT investors in your area that way you fully control the value and exchange, rather than using an 'centralized exchange'. also by not selling the coin on an 'centralized exchange' your not dumping coins to cause a price drop. and as i said not having to push the limits of the fair volatility pricing to squeeze in some commission and hoarding %

So this is almost identical to what Franky1 is talking about what he does for his customers with a company web portal where they key in their dollar amount + his commission for being the exchange/etc....   

I think your cavirtex pricing is out of wack though... it says its $560 and its actually $520.

CoinOS is open source and volunteer driven, and is really just a web app configured for brick & mortar merchants. Although it has reporting and such, we currently have to handle fiat conversion manually (although that will soon change). We are working to add a comprehensive version for online merchants, but credit cards and interac will go through traditional channels. We give them a free tablet to run the Bitcoin POS, so that's not asking them so much.

You can make a CoinOS page for yourself right now at coinos.io, but that website is about to undergo a massive upgrade. Stay tuned, if you're curious!

So I take it you are from Vancouver?  Cool.  How does CoinOS stack up in comparison to squirrel or micros pricing?  I am assuming this pos system does regular cc and interac payment processing?  Or will they use another device for that?   Would be interested in seeing the software layout and how it all works as I have a background in pos implementations and design.  Look forward to hearing more.   Cheers

I totally respect the privacy part my bad for asking

I do like the bar tab idea as it may sway the more old fashioned people to sign up on board and offer the payment processing.  One thing I would be curious to find out is what % are you padding on the location or does it depend customer to customer?  It looks like interac and visa mc charge anywhere from 1.3-3% of the transaction.  I think you could even charge 5% as you said people have made their money and will do it for convenience. 

Do you communicate the exchange service fee/rake when signing them up?   Sounds like you have been doing is for a little while and this has been very informal. 

Cheers

We are a non-profit. Our purpose is not to make money. One of our founders had a lot of bitcoins, and he ordered several dozen tablets from China, which we give away for free. I or another Co-op member shows up at your brick & mortar and installs it with CoinOS, our POS system, and you have no fees and free fiat conversion. Thereafter, we use our PR power to market your business to the Bitcoin community and media partners, and we host popular events at your location if it is an event venue. We might give you a Bitcoin ATM and split the profit with you.

Getting merchants on board has been relatively easy--it became a cultural phenomenon in Vancouver at some point. I have admin power in several very large Meet Ups, and I refuse to host events at any venue that does not take Bitcoin, even for my non-Bitcoin Meet Up groups. I walk around with a Bitcoin tattoo and a Bitcoin shirt, which opens up natural opportunities to talk about Bitcoin to whomever I bump into. I talk about the revolutionary social aspects most of all, as people want to hear that's it's not just about money. I tell them it's because Bitcoin is so awesome that we're willing to do these things for free, which prevents me from coming across as a salesman.

You CANNOT force these things. It's all about social power, making friends, and looking for opportunities. Knocking door to door will be vastly less successful. In general, every method will be less successful than ours, because we charge nothing. In addition to talking about how Bitcoin is cheaper and better for society, I mention the way we do things, and the positive vibes from our grassroots approach put many vendors at ease. It would be impossible to accuse us of being a scam.

i do, but i dont have one contracted term for all merchants. and not all merchants are contracted. each case scenario is independant and on different terms


i prefer to keep this username separate from my professional side. i also dont reveal the company side as i have called out MANY scammers and i know many would attempt to DDOS/hack as revenge for calling them out. also it helps general security if the community do not know the site and only merchants use it, again to ensure the service runs smoothly without outsiders trying to mess with it.
id say my service is unhackable and secure (unlike the basement dwellers PHPMysql services i see others use) but i still think that not inviting outsiders adds an extra layer to it

again professional privacy

all of the above. i am not prejudice against any business. whether they are grocery retailers or even the local farmer that supplies the local grocery store, whether a dentist, or a store that sells toothpaste..


for the bar tab it was a bit informal. none of my 'contracts' involved getting lawyers involved but had mutually beneficial wording to aid each other. thus neither of us would sting each other. i consider it a amicable agreement wrote on paper, as apposed to a contract. as for the funds sitting there for a long time, if the average transaction value was $4 (coffee at coffee shop) id only put a $40 tab in. that way its more than enough for a group of people in one go to turn up and spend their bitcoins. or enough for a few weeks of one customer a day. and i then re -evaluate the tab based on how fast or slow it depletes. again there is no one strict structure to it. and the clients love that i take the professional vs personal balance to it. its something visa would never offer them

Great advice!  Thank you very much.  So in other words you do not go into any contractual agreement with a merchant?   Do you have a website or official company?  If so please share that I would be interested in looking at it.  I think you have a great concept going on here.   What city/state are you in if you don't mind me asking?    What was your approach for traction?   opening up the phone book?  making decisions on who would be early adopters in the city?   Were you cold calling or going right in person?   I am sure it was a combination of all of the above...

I have an extensive sales background but would be interested in how you hit that...   

I 110% agree that you should not consider coinbase/blockchain wallet/merchant wallets a "professional" solution and I like the approach where you created them a company branded landing page with the percentage calculator hidden within it.   At the end of the day it is really simple.

You indicated a couple merchants got a $200 float.  Did they have to sign anything or did you go on good faith because of the chain or company that they were?   I could imagine if you offered that to every potential customer you could find yourself giving out money that will be sitting in their safe for quite some time due to adoption.


Regards,

 

again dont try to have 1 perfect solution for all merchants, take each interaction as individual and on its own merits, tailor each solution on what the merchant wants.

as for a professional setup. trying to ask for a days labour just to tell someone to setup to coinbase is NOT professional. as its something the merchant can do himself. so id only charge a merchant an hours labour not a days labour for this. and id not class it as a full professional service, but more of a basic setup

a proper full professional service is the whole project idea where YOU ARE THE EXCHANGE where the merchant never touches coinbase or bitpay. there are many ways to do it but fundementally, you have a website that sets a price that ensures that when a store owner types in $10 transaction, it equates to a bitcoin price that ensures the store owner gets a full $10 and you as the exchange have your costs met.

by having one set contracted term/project. it may not satisfy certain merchants. some do not want contracted periods, some do. some dont want to wait a month to receive a lump sum, some prefer to be paid daily. so again

again dont try to have 1 perfect solution for all merchants, take each interaction as individual and on its own merits, tailor each solution on what the merchant wants.

be open to all possibilities.

for instance i have a couple clients (store owners) where by i actually gave them $200 upfront as a form of a bar tab concept. and as bitcoin transactions happen i take the bitcoin (the store displays my bitcoin address) and the store simply deducts the FIAT off the tab(taking it out of their safe and putting it into the cash drawer)

for me its easier then me trying to get fiat into an exchange from my other income to turn into bitcoins, and i see it as buying it off the store owners

in other instances some want me to make a website page whih displays their logo and colour scheme with the QR code and bitcoin amount. and to train the staff on using the calculator that then shows the page so that customers can see the resulting payment screen.

other instances the store manager just wants a quick overview on it and then the want to set up their own system either hoarding the coins themself or using services like coinbase/bitpay

all that truly matters to me is merchant adoption. but if i can make a little out of it i will, without force or extortion

...and at the end of the day I would like to be a service industry consultant integrating bitcoin as a payment service to local merchants.   I just have a hard time coming up with a "professional" solution that will either integrate with existing POS or make it easy for the location....

Thanks

How do you provide them with a "professional" setup?   Give them a blockchain wallet and coinbase account?   That seems to be the "most professional" at the moment.  But I am located in Canada.... so yeah...  I like the idea of making X% from every trade.   How often do you cash them out to fiat?  Do you create them a web-based calculator with your margins in there or just get them to use a calc?  Since you are the locations "Exchange" - could you go into more detail about that?  When do you pay them? every week or every day?

Do you have these locations on some sort of contract or is it month to month?   Are there any other monthly or administrative costs you add in or consider?

to counter the ponzi-scam stuff is simple
1) show them the news from government/tax office announcements (cant be a scam if the government are accepting it)
2) you become the local stores exchange, even give them a simple system to calculate how much bitcoin to request from customers which the merchant then receives the FIAT from you.
3) tell them how you will contact local newspapers to do an article on the store, also if you have a local bitcoin meetup/social group, you will get them to use the business more often (free publicity)
4) by controlling the exchange calculator, you can make X% from every trade,

ponzi-scams usually try to hide information from the public. but by doing the publicity stuff with local media and showing that the tax office has declared bitcoin an asset, pretty much gives bitcoin strong legit profile

concentrating on point 4 some businesses want a professional setup and you can for the price of a days labour and possible equipment costs required, get the merchant to pay you for a proper consultation, setup and staff training day. businesses usually pay monthly charges to card processors and high % fee per transaction. so being offered a one time payment upfront for complete setup and training, knowing when they have a $10 transaction the 'calculator' tells them how much bitcoin to request from customer so that the merchant receives exactly $10 is a big benefit to them.


exchange rate
bitstamp campbx, btc-e, etc all have a varying BTC price. so bitcoin customers do not mind a 1-3% difference from the lowest possible priced exchange. so taking your 'exchange fee' from the customer side to ensure the shop gets $10 from a $10 transaction is the important thing. yes i know some bitcoiners here will moan that they are not getting a good deal. but smart bitcoiners have already made XX% profit from their hoarding, thus they know they actually are not losing out.

now the overall picture
i have found that having a set script and set rules of how to approach a retailer does not work, take each interaction as it comes. be open to any question that has been asked and tailor each answer in a manner that the business would understand. by this i do not mean just turn up unprepared. infact it involves more preparation, such as researching what the business sales and to think up objections that are worded in the simple laymans terms using words that are familiar to that business type.

EG
going to a fruit and veg store. and the merchant talks about the propaganda that it takes forever to accept a bitcoin(confirms). you can rebuttle to say:

exchange: "you receive green tomato's from supplier but when a customer comes in all they see is the nice ripe red ones, where your not asking customers to come back in a week for their purchase to turn red. right?"

retailer: "yep coz i keep them in the back storage to ripen"

exchange: "well ill act as your back storage, where you accept unconfirmed btc and i deal with the confirmation risks you simply take your fiat, so that you and customers wont need to wait for confirms"

retailer: "ok, that sounds good"

what is bitcoin
showing a merchant a leaflet or a youtube video is weak promotion. it is always best to have proper conversations and to then use the leaflets/videos as complimentary reminders/tools as part of the conversations. i have had alot of success with tailored conversations rather then email/leaflet campaigns. and you can make regular income from it. it all depends on how involved you wish to get.

p.s
feel free to ask any questions you like as i am still trying to figure out exactly what you wish to know.

True, but most people still think it is a scam or ponzi-scheme.    I am wondering how some people are training/educating otherwise.

The question is... Are they making money from "signing up dozens".   If so how does the business model work?


Thanks

This is information age. Anyone that can read and write can integrate their existing business and use bitcoin as a payment.

The Bitcoin Co-op has signed up dozens of brick & mortar businesses to accept Bitcoin. Restaurants, coffee shops, pubs and bars, hair stylists and eyeware retailers, and even university campuses. It is pretty much our sole service.