One of the key benefits for merchants when it comes to accepting bitcoin is cost savings. For every payment received via credit card, there will be a processing company charging a whopping 2-3 % on each transaction. Over time that gets expensive. And with bitcoin, the customer pays a small fee of a few cents. Seems like a win-win, right? It is.
But a common question is: what incentive does a customer have to use bitcoin? Certainly it seems like the merchant is benefiting most here. Now consider what the average consumer would do: help the merchant save on fees or earn airline miles or cash-back with that purchase?
Which is why many in the community consider is vital for merchants to incentivize the use of bitcoin.
The easiest way is to simply offer the consumer a discount if they choose to pay with bitcoin, and San Francisco-based Coinbase is now giving merchants an option to easily do just that.
Merchants will have the option (which, by the way, is located in the Merchant Settings page) of offering discounts of up to 25 percent, and it will be interesting to see if any merchant actually does go that high.
Already a number of Coinbase merchants have taken advantage of the new feature, including BloomNation, BitDazzle (who’s offering 10 percent off), and eGifter, who not only offers 3 percent points rewards, but an addition 3 percent discount after that.
Offering a better deal to bitcoin customers is important and opens the door to new users of the digital currency. Otherwise, there’s a possibility it’ll just remain an interest of enthusiasts.
[textmarker color=”C24000″]Source[/textmarker] Coinbase Blog