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> Well Dell wants to promote the currency Maybe. But that's probably just wishful thinking. Someone in marketing probably came up with this as a way to get som

by 67726e 12y ago

> Well Dell wants to promote the currency Maybe. But that's probably just wishful thinking. Someone in marketing probably came up with this as a way to get some free publicity from all the raving bitcoin lunatics and get some sales. Offering 10% off of their Alienware systems, which are pretty well know as overpriced crap, is probably a fraction of their markup.

bduerst 12y ago
Right. As with Overstock, this is marketing ploy to a target demographic.
- Alupis 12y ago
  My company started accepting bitcoin a few months back. We use BitPay.com to offload risk (they instantly convert a BTC payment into your preferred currency and cash you out at the going rate). We haven't made any sales with BTC yet... (as my VP reminds me weekly ;-), but none-the-less, the company views it as a great alternative to what normally would constitute a "high risk" shipment (usually to countries were high credit card fraud rates or other scams originate from... if we get our money now, and there is no risk of chargeback, etc, then we will ship the order). So, it's not really a "marketing ploy" as you put it, but rather a good vehicle to accept orders the company may have normally rejected due to too much risk.
  - doctorfoo 12y ago
    So, uh, what's the company? I got me some Bitcoins here. (Partially serious; chances are you don't sell what I need, but if you did, I'd rather support a Bitcoin accepting company.)
    - Alupis 12y ago
      Doubtful you would be interested in our products, although you never know! -- we're in the jewelry and crafting business. http://www.jewelrysupply.com/ http://www.jewelrysupply.com/ http://www.jewelrysupply.com/ordering_info.html http://www.jewelrysupply.com/ordering_info.html
  - rockyleal 12y ago
    Have patiencce. Bitcoin is a very new technology and mass adoption will definitively take time, but precisely because of that you will see significant rewards by being an early adopter.
    - jusben1369 12y ago
      I wish I could find the link but I read an interesting story about the history of successful new payment types. Dwolla (not), mPesa, PayPal, Venmo, btc. The successful ones all had an early sustained uptick. btc looked more like Dwolla which had not. So it appears that the patience argument, which in general makes sense, may not apply here.
- nishonia 12y ago
  The CEO of Overstock, Patrick Byrne, is an outspoken libertarian. It is just as likely that a political move as it is a 'marketing ploy'.
- wyager 12y ago
  Overstock acceptance is absolutely not a marketing ploy. The CEO of overstock gave a talk at a Bitcoin conference. He is very passionate about certain areas of philosophy, and Bitcoin tickles his philosophical fancy.
  - pauletienney 12y ago
    "tickles his philosophical fancy" : i like this sentence
  - A_COMPUTER 12y ago
    Here's a video of it. I really enjoyed listening to the talk. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bkf04kQw1YU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bkf04kQw1YU
- baddox 12y ago
  I can't understand the point of your argument. You're saying that Dell chose to integrate Bitcoin because it will be noticed by Bitcoin users, who will then purchase Dell products with bitcoins. What is wrong with this motivation, and what other possible motivation would there be to integrate any payment method?
  - sanswork 12y ago
    Major companies accepting bitcoin have gotten a fair bit of free press even if they haven't converted to sales in bitcoin. So they aren't doing it to get bitcoin users they are doing it so that they get free publicity from the news media and bitcoin users going around talking about them all the time. For example I've heard about Overstock more in the past year than I have in the past decade and they are constantly in the news. Despite the fact that bitcoin sales figures are low and have been in decline since day one for them.
    - baddox 12y ago
      > So they aren't doing it to get bitcoin users they are doing it so that they get free publicity from the news media and bitcoin users going around talking about them all the time. That's almost certainly part of the story. But the only reason they get free publicity that they believe will benefit them is that some people are genuinely fans of Bitcoin, enough so that the negative effects of potential customers who hate Bitcoin will be outweighed by the positive effects of potential customers who love Bitcoin.
      - sanswork 12y ago
        Any publicity that isn't negative will benefit them even if it is a neutral story for most people it still gets their name in front of the news watching public. >enough so that the negative effects of potential customers who hate Bitcoin will be outweighed by the positive effects of potential customers who love Bitcoin. I don't think people who hate bitcoin will avoid a store because they accept it. I mean I'm pretty vocally outspoken about bitcoin in that I don't think it offers anything for consumers and I don't think it will ultimately succeed but its not like I'm going to avoid Newegg from now on. :) So ultimately by accepting bitcoin even if you don't get a single bitcoin customer you probably get spoken about in the news a bit which will maybe add more general customers. Thats more of a belief in free publicity then bitcoin though.
FranOntanaya 12y ago
And 10% of those will probably burn out their Alienware systems trying to mine bitcoins in them anyway.
smoyer 12y ago
I think it's probable that someone in marketing created this campaign ... and they're careful to call it a "pilot" in the announcement (so they can pretty easily back out). On the other hand, if Bitcoin sales are adding to their gross income, why would they get rid of the program? If it's cannibalizing other sales channels, it may not be worth the extra effort.
johnyzee 12y ago
Why wouldn't they want to promote the currency? Bitcoin is win-win for the merchants, with no fees and no chargebacks.
- SilasX 12y ago
  Like I say every time this comes up: lack of chargebacks is a mixed blessing. It puts risk on buyers, which shows up as lower demand for the product, with part of the economic incidence falling on the merchant. To the extent that it's a benefit, I would prefer it be phrased as the ability to opt out of chargback insurance, the cost of which can be shared by merchant and buyer, if it's not worth the cost.
  - placeybordeaux 12y ago
    >It puts risk on buyers, which shows up as lower demand for the product Because the bitcoin crowd has shown it's self time and time again to be perfectly rational agents.
- pistle 12y ago
  There's no fees because you can't tell a merchant they are are going have to pay fees for handling the funny money. Do you think Dell is over the barrel with fees? It's one thing if you just got your first cheap card scanner as a merchant or use stripe. It's another thing if you bring volume. Coinbase is out there begging to be allowed to put the "Bitcoin accepted here!" sticker on any window they can so that they can put consumers in exactly the same, or worse, spot they are in now should BC become more than funny money. For moving money in shadows, there's Bitcoin. For everything else, there's MasterCard.
- MichaelGG 12y ago
  Coinbase doesn't charge a fee?
- 67726e 12y ago
  And that is a double-edged sword for the consumer. What if I purchase something and the vendor screws up and refuses to fix it? What if the vendor scams me? Having a credit card gives me the chargeback process to resolve a dispute. Using Dunning-Krugerrands... sorry, bitcoin, gives me no real recourse other than to piss and moan on Twitter. I get using Bitcoin to purchase when it's questionable or you otherwise want something to be anonymous, although with a physical good it is much harder to be anonymous, but why in the hell would I care if someone knows I bought an Alienware laptop or a pack of socks on Overstock? And that is assuming they someone got ahold of my transaction records anyway.
chimeracoder 12y ago
> Someone in marketing probably came up with this as a way to get some free publicity Bitcoin comes with essentially none of the consumer protections associated with credit card payments[0]. All of those consumer protections represent liabilities to merchants. Similarly, merchants usually bear the costs associated with disputes and/or fraud (depending on how they're resolved, and this depends on the company). Bitcoin offers a great way to process these transactions without any of these risks for the merchants (oftentimes at the cost of shifting those risks onto the customer). So, it's not marketing so much as some higher-up realizing that they can now offload some of their liabilities onto their customers. At this point, why wouldn't they? [0] There are other consumer protections that are independent of payment method, but I'm referring to those specifically.

by 67726e 12y ago

bduerst 12y ago

Right. As with Overstock, this is marketing ploy to a target demographic.

Alupis 12y ago
My company started accepting bitcoin a few months back. We use BitPay.com to offload risk (they instantly convert a BTC payment into your preferred currency and cash you out at the going rate). We haven't made any sales with BTC yet... (as my VP reminds me weekly ;-), but none-the-less, the company views it as a great alternative to what normally would constitute a "high risk" shipment (usually to countries were high credit card fraud rates or other scams originate from... if we get our money now, and there is no risk of chargeback, etc, then we will ship the order). So, it's not really a "marketing ploy" as you put it, but rather a good vehicle to accept orders the company may have normally rejected due to too much risk.
- doctorfoo 12y ago
  So, uh, what's the company? I got me some Bitcoins here. (Partially serious; chances are you don't sell what I need, but if you did, I'd rather support a Bitcoin accepting company.)
  - Alupis 12y ago
    Doubtful you would be interested in our products, although you never know! -- we're in the jewelry and crafting business. http://www.jewelrysupply.com/ http://www.jewelrysupply.com/ http://www.jewelrysupply.com/ordering_info.html http://www.jewelrysupply.com/ordering_info.html
- rockyleal 12y ago
  Have patiencce. Bitcoin is a very new technology and mass adoption will definitively take time, but precisely because of that you will see significant rewards by being an early adopter.
  - jusben1369 12y ago
    I wish I could find the link but I read an interesting story about the history of successful new payment types. Dwolla (not), mPesa, PayPal, Venmo, btc. The successful ones all had an early sustained uptick. btc looked more like Dwolla which had not. So it appears that the patience argument, which in general makes sense, may not apply here.
nishonia 12y ago
The CEO of Overstock, Patrick Byrne, is an outspoken libertarian. It is just as likely that a political move as it is a 'marketing ploy'.
wyager 12y ago
Overstock acceptance is absolutely not a marketing ploy. The CEO of overstock gave a talk at a Bitcoin conference. He is very passionate about certain areas of philosophy, and Bitcoin tickles his philosophical fancy.
- pauletienney 12y ago
  "tickles his philosophical fancy" : i like this sentence
- A_COMPUTER 12y ago
  Here's a video of it. I really enjoyed listening to the talk. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bkf04kQw1YU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bkf04kQw1YU
baddox 12y ago
I can't understand the point of your argument. You're saying that Dell chose to integrate Bitcoin because it will be noticed by Bitcoin users, who will then purchase Dell products with bitcoins. What is wrong with this motivation, and what other possible motivation would there be to integrate any payment method?
- sanswork 12y ago
  Major companies accepting bitcoin have gotten a fair bit of free press even if they haven't converted to sales in bitcoin. So they aren't doing it to get bitcoin users they are doing it so that they get free publicity from the news media and bitcoin users going around talking about them all the time. For example I've heard about Overstock more in the past year than I have in the past decade and they are constantly in the news. Despite the fact that bitcoin sales figures are low and have been in decline since day one for them.
  - baddox 12y ago
    > So they aren't doing it to get bitcoin users they are doing it so that they get free publicity from the news media and bitcoin users going around talking about them all the time. That's almost certainly part of the story. But the only reason they get free publicity that they believe will benefit them is that some people are genuinely fans of Bitcoin, enough so that the negative effects of potential customers who hate Bitcoin will be outweighed by the positive effects of potential customers who love Bitcoin.
    - sanswork 12y ago
      Any publicity that isn't negative will benefit them even if it is a neutral story for most people it still gets their name in front of the news watching public. >enough so that the negative effects of potential customers who hate Bitcoin will be outweighed by the positive effects of potential customers who love Bitcoin. I don't think people who hate bitcoin will avoid a store because they accept it. I mean I'm pretty vocally outspoken about bitcoin in that I don't think it offers anything for consumers and I don't think it will ultimately succeed but its not like I'm going to avoid Newegg from now on. :) So ultimately by accepting bitcoin even if you don't get a single bitcoin customer you probably get spoken about in the news a bit which will maybe add more general customers. Thats more of a belief in free publicity then bitcoin though.

FranOntanaya 12y ago

And 10% of those will probably burn out their Alienware systems trying to mine bitcoins in them anyway.

smoyer 12y ago

I think it's probable that someone in marketing created this campaign ... and they're careful to call it a "pilot" in the announcement (so they can pretty easily back out). On the other hand, if Bitcoin sales are adding to their gross income, why would they get rid of the program? If it's cannibalizing other sales channels, it may not be worth the extra effort.

johnyzee 12y ago

Why wouldn't they want to promote the currency? Bitcoin is win-win for the merchants, with no fees and no chargebacks.

SilasX 12y ago
Like I say every time this comes up: lack of chargebacks is a mixed blessing. It puts risk on buyers, which shows up as lower demand for the product, with part of the economic incidence falling on the merchant. To the extent that it's a benefit, I would prefer it be phrased as the ability to opt out of chargback insurance, the cost of which can be shared by merchant and buyer, if it's not worth the cost.
- placeybordeaux 12y ago
  >It puts risk on buyers, which shows up as lower demand for the product Because the bitcoin crowd has shown it's self time and time again to be perfectly rational agents.
pistle 12y ago
There's no fees because you can't tell a merchant they are are going have to pay fees for handling the funny money. Do you think Dell is over the barrel with fees? It's one thing if you just got your first cheap card scanner as a merchant or use stripe. It's another thing if you bring volume. Coinbase is out there begging to be allowed to put the "Bitcoin accepted here!" sticker on any window they can so that they can put consumers in exactly the same, or worse, spot they are in now should BC become more than funny money. For moving money in shadows, there's Bitcoin. For everything else, there's MasterCard.
MichaelGG 12y ago
Coinbase doesn't charge a fee?
67726e 12y ago
And that is a double-edged sword for the consumer. What if I purchase something and the vendor screws up and refuses to fix it? What if the vendor scams me? Having a credit card gives me the chargeback process to resolve a dispute. Using Dunning-Krugerrands... sorry, bitcoin, gives me no real recourse other than to piss and moan on Twitter. I get using Bitcoin to purchase when it's questionable or you otherwise want something to be anonymous, although with a physical good it is much harder to be anonymous, but why in the hell would I care if someone knows I bought an Alienware laptop or a pack of socks on Overstock? And that is assuming they someone got ahold of my transaction records anyway.

chimeracoder 12y ago

> Someone in marketing probably came up with this as a way to get some free publicity Bitcoin comes with essentially none of the consumer protections associated with credit card payments[0]. All of those consumer protections represent liabilities to merchants. Similarly, merchants usually bear the costs associated with disputes and/or fraud (depending on how they're resolved, and this depends on the company). Bitcoin offers a great way to process these transactions without any of these risks for the merchants (oftentimes at the cost of shifting those risks onto the customer). So, it's not marketing so much as some higher-up realizing that they can now offload some of their liabilities onto their customers. At this point, why wouldn't they? [0] There are other consumer protections that are independent of payment method, but I'm referring to those specifically.