If you are a merchant retailer new to the concept of accepting Bitcoin, either on-chain or off-chain (I’ll briefly cover these shortly), I wanted to post a brief overview that covers the why of acceptance.
Bitcoin is a electronic payment method that was introduced in 2009 and has grown organically over time. From a proof of concept worth fractions of a penny to a method of payment and store of value worth many thousands of dollars in 13 years is astounding. Without going into Bitcoin’s reason for being and its use as hard money (these concepts and more are covered by many specialized economic theory books), let’s just talk the basics of business interaction with customers.
Business owners go head over heels to attract customers to their business in a myriad of ways. Advertising. Sales. Specialized products. Product availability. Coupons. And even payment methods… Cash, Credit Cards, PayPal, Cash App, Venmo, Check, Gift Cards/Certificates, Barter, etc…
Business owners invest in ways that make people want to shop with your business and having an easy to use method of payment is a very strong consideration. People love to use their credit cards because cards can typically provide free miles for travel, delayed payment with instant gratification, easing of cash flow, and the credit they provide. A lot of people aren’t aware that a lot of these benefits provided by the credit cards are passed to the merchant who then must decide to absorb these costs or add them to the cost of doing business to turn a profit. You, as a merchant, are paying for the gold card perks of Visa, MasterCard and American Express and you are doing it for an average of 3% per transaction. For every $100 received in as revenue from a credit card, you are spending $3 (minimum) for this privilege and convenience. This ends up taking away 6% in margin away from your net profit. That adds up to a lot of money that #Bitcoiin via lightning payments mitigates almost completely. Imagine a 6 million dollar a year in sales business transitioning to #Bitcoin lightning payments and saving $150,000 a year in credit card fees. That is the vision.
This incentivizes your customers to spend #bitcoin via lightning because your savings will be passed down to the customers via lower prices thru market forces. You are no longer absorbing a full 3% in fees. You’ll want to adjust your prices to reward/incentivize those who spend their #bitcoin with you.
Some facts about #bitcoin lightning:
- Due to the adoption of #Bitcoin via Lightning by the $CashApp (primarily in the US) and Chivo in El Salvador, the Lightning network has grown 400% year over year.
https://coincheckup.com/blog/lightning-network-usage-grows-over-400-yoy-arcane-research/ - #Bitcoin Lightning facilitates INSTANT PAYMENTS (just as quick or faster than credit cards) between your customers and your point of sale terminal.
- #Bitcoin Lightning facilitates INSTANT SETTLEMENT of funds – no waiting 24-48 hours for your funds to sweep to your bank account like standard credit card payments.
BTCRetailX integrates Bitcoin Lightning payments in its point of sale but the BTCRetailX team can also integrate Bitcoin Lightning payments into most existing legacy financial transaction systems including accounting, hotel ecommerce and legacy point of sale. Just ask.