People say you need to offer a discount to get Bitcoiners to spend.
I’ve never offered one.
50% of my sales come in bitcoin.
The truth is, most Bitcoiners aren’t looking for a deal.
They’re looking for alignment.
They don’t want to save a few bucks at your expense.
They want your business to win so they can keep buying from you for years to come.
This makes sense to me.
I’ve noticed a few online merchants who are adding their credit card fees to the purchase price, which makes sense. But often there’s no alternative payment method. A brick and mortar store could add a credit card fee and have a cash price, but that doesn’t work on line. As a consumer and speaking just for myself, I’d appreciate it if the merchant didn’t average the credit card fees over all purchase types, but (for example) said something like cash/btc might be $100, but credit card price like is $103. I agree with the incentives and desire for adoption, but I also know that if the price for cash/btc are the same to me as credit, and my card gives me 1-2% back, and is more convenient at check out, that’s an incentive too. I know it’s not a lot, but it adds up over time.
Would you rather they just raise their prices X% and not be transparent about it?
I prefer the transparency, 100%. Personally I’d rather see the credit card fee added at checkout, and hopefully that visibility spurs a desire for the merchant to offer a “fee free” payment method. Using my meat provider as an example, he will accept cash, check, BTC on chain or lightning, and any credit card. But all are the same price to the customer. Which means he’s taken the credit card fees that most orders will cost him and spread it out into the cost of all the products. I will still pay him in BTC since he’s one of the few I know in the physical world who accepts it.
For what it’s worth- we just don’t drink much, or I’m sure I’d be a customer. I will definitely order as gifts in the future, as I definitely seek out businesses like yours to support. I have a ton of respect for you and other merchants moving the ball down the field for all of us.
While I don’t have a business myself, I do help coordinate farm products (dairy, eggs, etc) from a rural farmer to our suburban area. He drops off orders weekly at my house, and I distribute and collect money. Of the customers we have, nearly all ask to pay me with Venmo, and just a couple use cash- and I pay the farmer in cash. Nobody (yet) will use BTC. I try to encourage it, but no takers yet. We are, as they say, still so early. My one success with BT. was with our massage therapist, who I offered to tip in cash, or tip 1.5x in BTC. She’s the only one who was interested by that offer enough to accept it. And she got some sub-$30k sats for it!
The way you tipped your massage therapist is the way to go. If you really want people to get on BTC you gotta eat a bit of money in this scenario.
Sell things for a REAL discount that people will feel. Eat the loss, but build your network
Totally agree. I wasn’t as confident of BTCs future a few years ago when I was tipping her, say, $30 in BTC vs $20 cash, and for all I know she might have quickly moved it back to USD after she got it. I should ask her…
I also picked up some sats cards from coinkite to load up for this upcoming graduation season. The new high school/college graduates might be more interested than my average gen X friend.
