Re: Interesting conversation with a retailer who formerly accepted Bitcoin
bit-pay. Very easy. A merchant can signup in about a day, have no currency risk, integrate with online shopping carts, even accept coins from a mobile phone. If a merchant can figure out a merchant account (CC) they can figure out bit-pay.
Yup. In fact, bit-pay is easier to figure out than a merchant account from a "fee clarity" perspective.
The idea a merchant would sell tea @ $32 USD:BTC and not be able to figure out how to hit the sell button on an exchange for 4 months while price fell to $2 USD:BTC is kinda silly.
It's pretty clear (to me) that the above doesn't apply to NM Tea Co. Mr. Edwards had a MtGox account. Mr. Edwards had a Mybitcoin account. Mr. Edwards engaged the community for advice on how to integrate bitcoin payments into his business model. More importantly, Mr. Edwards accepted BTC in trade for his goods for a period of time. Unless Mr. Edwards is lying, it appears to me that he had a working knowledge of the mechanics of bitcoin...certainly enough to make a rational decision on the merits of continuing to accept BTC (in the absence of bit-pay). Insinuating that Mr. Edwards didn't know how to hit his Gox sell button is completely disingenuous, IMO.
The merchant was uninformed, the OP didn't have the information to inform him but now he does. Short sightedness on the part of some bitcoin users doesn't change the fact that trivially easy solutions exist. There is no unresolved problem, simply uninformed merchants.
The first thing that came to mind after reading the above was Jimmy Fallon's old bit on SNL: "Nick Burns - your company's computer guy"
D&T (and with all due respect cuz I'm a fan of yours): if bitcoin is truly a superior electronic payment system, and if mitigating the risks of accepting bitcoin are so trivial for merchants, why don't we see better adoption? Bitcoin and bit-pay have been around for some time now, and we ain't in the days of the Pony Express info-mation-wise. If the BTC "low fee/low risk" value proposition for merchants hasn't caught on like wildfire by now...why? How long will the "merchants just don't know enough about bitcoin" argument last?
Edwards/NM Tea Co. is exactly the type of merchant that bitcoin should welcome/cultivate with open arms. I don't know about the rest of you, but I see an entrepreneur who put some precious time and money into an attempt at making BTC work. Dude's running both a brick & mortar and a web facing operation (and more?), and he had the foresight to recognize that bitcoin might be good for business. Dismissing his problems out of hand is, well...