Topic: Why we shouldnt worry if Amazon doesnt accept btc! (Read 3489 times)

There are many people who do not have access to traditional banking services who would not otherwise be able to buy things online.

What I think will become more common in the future, is the fact that people will buy bitcoin and spend it in order to take advantage of discounts for paying in bitcoin as merchants will have much lower costs with accepting bitcon payments verses accepting a credit card payment.

That's take a point. Sounds that buy back system worth something lol

I take your point but a number of us want Bitcoin to succeed for reasons other than speculative gain.

On principle alone I'll shop at a business that accepts Bitcoin, even if it costs me a little more.  Amazon has lost a sale or two here of there because of my policy.  And I tend to buy back a little more than I spend each time.  I'm with counter on this one.

I'm not sure your looking at this with an open mind.  People are likely going to want to try and use their Bitcoins and I think you're underestimating the amount of reasons they would have to do so.   The intuition of the merchants that accept Bitcoins shows the aren't dumb.  Once they use it and have a better understanding they'd likely realize the real value of Bitcoin goes far beyond the need to exchange it for fiat.  This is not going to happen exactly the same for everyone but that is to be expected with many new people adopting Bitcoin that they won't be the strongest of hands.

Five percent of their sales?  That'd be huge and rather surprising, given the massive volume that Amazon has.  Overstock is a reasonably large business, but it pales in comparison to Amazon...

In any case, I really think this is one of those be careful what you wish for situations.  As amazing as Amazon adopting bitcoin would be, I really hope it doesn't happen for several years.  There just isn't enough people using bitcoin yet for a company the size of Amazon to be able to accept bitcoin and not have the price plunge in value from them cashing out. 

Also, right now, while I'm sure the management is thinking about it, it's probably a long term plan.  The accounting headaches of doing this (assuming they didn't cash out everything immediately) would probably be greater than their dollar savings, unless they truly do make 5% of their sales in bitcoin, which as I said, would surprise me very much.  Regardless, for a company the size of Amazon, I really think we'll need a good and proper price hedging system for them to be able to accept it, and ideally, a large amount of their suppliers who accept bitcoin directly.

Because PayPal is an eBay company. Do you think before you post or do you just put a bunch of words together, hope they make sense and get paid from Stunna? 

I never had trouble buying things off amazon, btc is only a side option for me.

Thanks for the share though.

Seeing Amazon accept bitcoin would be big however they seem to be quite reluctant on accepting many payment methods so I wouldn't hold our hopes up too much for them accepting this. As of yet I don't think they have accepted one of the bigger payment merchants which is PayPal so would they consider this with it still being so small and not too well known with a lot of people?

I find this notion that people are aquiring Bitcoins in the market to then spend at a normal retail establishment to be quite odd.  Its daft to purchase something only to use it to purchase something else, where that interim step is unnecessary.  I'm sure there some cases, some for the novelty or to see how it works, or edge case financial situations.  But it doesn't make much sense to risk the loses in exchange or the transaction costs to do so regularly.  I expect the vast majority of Bitcoin sales through regular retailers are from self-mined stockpiles.

If amazon does not accept btc then its their own problem, their own loss. It won't  affect BTC>.

Amazon's been struggling the more they introduce new schemes, products, and services, increasingly becoming a conglomerate and trying to "force the market," pushing funds to stuff like Lab126. They posted a tiny loss in '12, but made ~$274M in '13. They're estimating effectively breaking even this year, and are expected to post weak profits next year. They used to post many hundreds of $millions and even $billions per year. Amazon grows rapidly, but the stock's basically ev- or neutral at best mid-term and long-term almost any way you look at it. I'd argue they have been exploiting their dominant position (or at least trying to), and failing largely because of it.

Basically, I think they've grown too large for their pool and don't have anywhere to go, but they don't really know what to do with their money because they're expected to be multiplying revenue figures like madmen, so they throw it into bad projects. From an investment perspective, it'd probably be good to "go back to their roots," look at their "real" business (distribution/sales platform), and look at ways of squeezing more profits out of their revenue, which'd obviously include accepting BTC (and dumping Prime ).

If Amazon were able to convert just 5% of their fiat sales to BTC, assuming an effective 3% overhead/fees on CC & .5% on BTC, they'd be posting ~$100M less in expenses this year without revenue loss while also ignoring any customer acquisition from the move. -But Amazon acts like a consumer-oriented charity while Bezos sells out of it instead of getting rid of the things generating both revenues and net losses, so with its Profit Retardation philosophy, other companies like Exxon and Shell may actually adopt BTC before Amazon, while also being more important steps for Bitcoin.

ETA: Sometimes I think Amazon's trying the Walmart strategy of inhuman growth and pushing through that strain & pain just to push out other B&M businesses in an area, then raising prices once a monopoly's established - which makes no fucking sense since the barrier to entry in a virtual supermarket is pennies on the dollar of producing a B&M supermarket. You can't keep competition out when barrier to entry is roughly equivalent to opening a freakin' lemonade stand.

This would assume that anyone who would buy something with bitcoin already had bitcoin and would not have otherwise spent/sold it. I would argue that most of the time this is not the case, I think that most people that spend bitcoin have semi recently purchased bitcoin with the intention of spending it.   

Sounds good to be, but the bigger they are, the harder they fall. If the company doesn't trust Bitcoin just yet, they'll be more reluctant to try things out than smaller companies will. If smaller companies do well, bigger companies will jump on board. Dell is the largest company to date to accept Bitcoin payments, but they exchange it for fiat right away. That creates a "downward pressure" on the bitcoin value.

If amazon does not accept BTC then its their bad move, they are loosing a lot of potential business.

I still want Amazon to accept it as a payment option 

Yes, it does give Bitcoin more purpose and credibility, its one less reason to deny Bitcoin's use.  Not necessarily its value.  Here's the deeper economic point: its depleting its value, as you valued the purchased item more than you did the Bitcoin.  With normal currency this isn't an issue as the vendor values the currency.  However here they don't, and promptly offload immediately.  This is not a good thing long term, its a constant selling pressure on the currency.

One of the main features Amazon features is volume, they have TONS of different things you would then be able to buy with bitcoin.

I'm not worried. I either buy a gift card, or use my regular credit card, and then pay the bill with bitcoins. Or run the coins through an exchange to pay the bill.

If ebay accepts it, then amazon will surely too, to avoid losses on not accepting it!

All these market-giants have protested against bitcoin once. Knowing the amount of BTC in market and its demand, they are one siding with it.

It wouldn't be surprize if e-bay makes user friendly policies for BTC too.