Best Buy IdeaX

[#1]

Have you ever considered accepting Bitcoins as a payment option. This would seem like a great way to get some very tech savvy consumers, get the people who spend thousands on custom computers buying from Best Buy, and get free advertising by being listed on the Bit Coin merchant list.

[#2]

I have to admit my own ignorance as to what Bitcoin is, but we would love to hear from more users of this payment option as to what the advantages of this service is over more traditional payment options.

[#3]

Hi Allan-BBY, Here are some good introductory resources for you to start with: http://lovebitcoins.org/introduction.html http://lovebitcoins.org/forBusiness.html From there, the official project website, http://bitcoin.org has links to a lot more resources. The wiki in particular is brimming with info.

[#4]

@allan-bby  I am a Geek Squad SVC tech at store 1124 in Grand Jct. CO and have brought the idea up to the store director and he asked me to make a presentation about it.  If you are interested I can let you know when that presentation will be.

[#5]

@Allan-BBY,

Tthere are several advantages to using bitcoins as a form of payment.  First it allows you to bypass the credit card processing fee saving Best Buy millions each year.  Second the primary users of bitcoin are tech savvy people who are willing to spend money on electronics, games, and customizing their computers.  Third most of the people who use bitcoins are also gamers and so giving them the option of being able to buy games with bitcoins would get them to buy games at Best Buy instead of Game Stop thereby increasing the market share which is a focus of Best Buy. Fourth, in the last week bitcoins have went from $3 per bitcoin to $5.25 per bitcoin and looks like it will only go higher which would allow Best Buy to increase their profits significantly.  Fifth, like gift cards people are more willing to spend bitcoins than dollars as they don't think of them in the same way.  There are many other benefits but will not post them here as they are going into my presentation for my store director at store 1124 and might be considered protected company information.

[#6]

Best Buy should accept WoW gold as payment. I have 235k gold that I have no idea how to spend.

[#7]

tempus12,

Thanks for sharing the additional information on this form of payment, and you present a compelling argument. I'm pretty confident, that when deciding what types of funds we accept as payment, that decision is made at the highest level of our company. I can also assume that we would not make this decision quickly, or without a substantial amount of market research.

I did get your private message, and have responded

[#8]

Allan if anyone from Best Buy is at CES this week, we have a Bitcoin booth #70018 in the Venetian.  We can give some live demonstrations of bitcoin payments, both online and in person.

I am the co-founder of Bit-Pay which at this point is the world leader in bitcoin payment processing.   https://bit-pay.com

Bitcoin is still in beta stage throughout the world, it's lke the internet in the days of NCSA Mosaic.  the companies that started taking a good look at the internet in 1994 were miles ahead of those who waited until 1996.  I think we're going to see a repeat of that with bitcoin.

[#9]

Why a vendor like Best Buy should accept Bitcoin: Zero chargeback risk, zero fees (compared to 2-3% on credit/debit cards), and no need to store sensitive customer financial information (thus reducing risk of hacking and subsequent liability). Payments can be accepted from customers anywhere in the world. Why a customer should pay with Bitcoin: Vendors will be able to reduce prices when paid in Bitcoin, due to the lower fees they incur and the lack of chargeback risk. Also, a customer who pays in Bitcoin doesn't need to surrender his private financial information, or worry about identity theft. Bitcoin is far more private and more secure than credit cards. Within a few years Bitcoin payments will be widespread in the US and around the world, and it would behoove a tech retail giant like Best Buy to get a head start on this. Bitcoin is to payments what email was to communication - it is the most exciting thing happening in both technology and in finance, and this is not hyperbole.

[#10]

Does Best Buy compete against Wal-Mart or Amazon.com? 

There are a way to use bitcoins for purchases at both of these: http://btcgiftcards.com (Wal-Mart) and http://www.spendbitcoins.com (Amazon.com).  Does Best Buy just wish to let those revenues continue going to its competitors? 

[#11]

The main two points for accepting Bitcoin as payment have been echoed over and over again in this thread: No transaction reversal threats whatsoever, and salivatingly low fees.  

Bitcoin is not only resistant to chargebacks by policy, it is resistant to chargebacks by technical and cryptographic means:  It is impossible to reverse a Bitcoin transaction in precisely the same way that it is impossible to decrypt a secure web site.  

Credit and debit cards have high fees due to the fact that there exists a duopoly between Visa and MasterCard for central clearinghouse infrastructure.  Bitcoin solves this problem by delegating this responsibility in a way that allows competition to flourish.  

The fees for conducting business with Bitcoin are typically less than 5 cents per transaction, and under certain conditions, can even be completely free of charge.  

Best Buy can take Bitcoins with a lot less effort that one would initially imagine.  Like what CashStar does for gift cards, contracting with a third-party payment processor like Bit-Pay (above) can free Best Buy from having to worry about directly bearing the costs and risks associated with creating and properly managing a custom solution that is secure, reliable, robust, and low-cost.