As a new payment method, bitcoins are gaining acceptance among consumers and businesses around the world. Recognized as a payment that circumvents the hassle of currency exchange and offers alternatives to credit and debit cards, bitcoins are now being used in more places than you may realize.
As The New York Times explained about bitcoin’s merchant appeal:
“When retailers started accepting Bitcoin, the appeal was largely the currency’s ability to attract new customers with its novelty. But as Bitcoin has become more mainstream, merchants may now be embracing digital money to lower payment processing fees and make purchases easier for already-loyal customers.”
A recent search revealed new bitcoin directories to help you discover all the places that now accept bitcoins as payment for goods and services, listing over 100,000 merchants.
To illustrate how mainstream bitcoins are becoming, here are five places you may not have known that have added bitcoins as an acceptable payment method.
5 Places You May Have Not Known You Can Use Bitcoins
- Overstock: This discount retailer decided to start accepting bitcoins in 2014 and has experienced considerable success.
An Entrepreneur magazine article noted that the company received more than 3,000 orders in the first month of adding bitcoins to its payment methods.
Its website explains how to use bitcoins to pay for an order as well as how the digital currency works in the hopes that it reassures more customers that this is a credible and safe way to pay for the discounted goods.
- Expedia: This travel site also started accepting bitcoin to pay for hotel bookings in 2014. In the future, they will extend this payment method to their other travel products, including flights, transportation, and vacation packages.
To help travelers understand how to use bitcoins, Expedia has added a particular set of terms and conditions on its travel website.
- Dell: The computer giant started accepting bitcoins as payment in 2014 and had provided a comprehensive page that explains what bitcoins are and how they can be used to safely make purchases on Dell’s online computer store.
- PayPal: Intent on remaining at the forefront of payment technology, the online payment company signed on in 2014 to accept bitcoin as a payment method through its subsidiary, Braintree.
In a CNN article, the company as noted as being interested primarily in the technology that lies at the heart of the Bitcoin system, which is a public ledger known as a blockchain. This ledger keeps “records that are decentralized and keeps users semi-anonymous while making their transactions public.”
- Gyft: This online gift card retailer offers a way to buy all types of gift cards from other retailers but to use bitcoins instead of traditional currency. Not only does this provide a way for more people to purchase a broad range of gift cards to over 200 of the best brands, but Gyft also incentivizes those who want to use bitcoin by giving them three-percent back in Gyft points for the total they spend.
The gift cards are in traditional currency amounts so essentially the purchaser is trading bitcoin for cash to shop at those retailers that don’t accept the Internet currency.
Beyond these recognizable brands that surprisingly have expanded their payments methods to include bitcoin, there are thousands of small business owners that are also adding cryptocurrency.
These small businesses view it as an option to attract more customers from all over the world and create a competitive advantage.
