Merchant Marketing Pitch

[bytemaster]

Near-instant payment confirmations

Confirm payments in seconds, with zero chargebacks.

(Although credit cards can be near-instant as well, they do not eliminate chargebacks. It may be worth reiterating the point that BitUSD can be near-instant to help preempt skepticism and also to distinguish BitUSD from Bitcoin and slower solutions.)


[bReduce liability[/b]

Increase customer confidence-your customers no longer need to worry about data breaches or identity theft


Eliminate minimum credit card purchase amounts

No need to set a minimum transaction size to cover credit card fees. Give your customers maximum flexibility.

There is a fine line between pitching features vs benefits.   "Near-instant payment confirmations" is a feature, not a benefit.   What is the benefit of having near-instant payment confirmations? 

[pendragon3]

Near-instant payment confirmations

Confirm payments in seconds, with zero chargebacks.

(Although credit cards can be near-instant as well, they do not eliminate chargebacks. It may be worth reiterating the point that BitUSD can be near-instant to help preempt skepticism and also to distinguish BitUSD from Bitcoin and slower solutions.)


[bReduce liability[/b]

Increase customer confidence-your customers no longer need to worry about data breaches or identity theft


Eliminate minimum credit card purchase amounts

No need to set a minimum transaction size to cover credit card fees. Give your customers maximum flexibility.

[sumantso]

If there was a way to accept BitUSD/AU without the eftpos facilities that cost an arm and a leg we would set it up in a pinch.

!! I think we have a new Delegate brewing here.

Step 1: Gather with some talented, motivated friends and write up a proposal for a Delegate outlining how you will set up bitUSD/AU.
Step 2: If you need start capital, promise away some % of your future Delegate salary, or ask for donations or a grant from I3.
Step 3: Set up your business and accept bitUSD with your bitUSD/AU service.
Step 4: ? ? ?
Step 5: Profit!

Extra step: Figure out how to produce blocks, or go out of your skill set to try and find somebody who can.

The reason why I think delegates and employees should be kept separate.

[pendragon3]

Increase Profits

At just $0.02 per transaction you can increase your profit margins by several percent by eliminating credit card fees.

"Increasing profit margins by several percent" is vague. Surely it depends on the type of business?

How much on average do merchants pay in CC fees? Does it differ for small, medium, and large merchants? Some hard figures to cite to would be useful.

Also, it might be more accurate to talk about percentage point increases rather than percentage increases. Better yet, talk about eliminating 2.x% in fees from every sale.

[Pheonike]

That may hurt a little, but it gives bitusd utility reach will increase volume. As long the ppl spending bitusd keep some some in their account it will increase the value of bts. Convincing ppl spenders to keep bitusd in their accounts is important. And they will only do that if they know there are merchants that will accept it.

[milkmeat]

I think you will need on/off ramps available before you can sell this. Merchants will need to be able to convert to fiat. Mainly to pay wages, taxes, and for some, piece of mind in this new unproven frontier.

This is very important. How do we address that? If converting bitUSD to FIAT is more expensive than credit card fee, bitUSD is not attracting any more. Merchants needs fiat to pay wages and dividends anyway, at least before bitUSD is well accepted, this is a very long time.

[Rune]

BitUSD is a currency. They don't need to hold it. All we care about is that they are not accepting BTS (an asset we hope to accumulate value) and immediately selling it.

The effect of a merchant accepting and dumping bitUSD is exactly the same as accepting and dumping BTS: it hurts our market cap. Now obviously getting merchants on board will not make the BTS market cap decrease, since hodlers will buy back after spending. But it will not increase our market cap either, beyond the wow factor. As we saw with bitcoin the wow factor is not very significant. People assumed that bitcoin would go to the moon once PayPal started supporting it, but that barely registered on the price. The fact is that for the vast majority of people it is simply too convenient to just continue using their cards to pay for stuff (the obvious exception being the drug markets).

Anyway, once again I'm not arguing against enabling merchant integration. Getting merchants on board is good. But it's important that people realize that it will have almost no effect on the price, and should be considered simply as something that makes it more convenient for us who already hold to spend our BTS and bitUSD.

[lovejoy]

Excellent pitch BM!

Everyone is getting excited just by seeing how everything comes together, and that fuels into energy for coming up with suggestions. Keep posting things like this regularly and our precious market cap will keep rising, even before the push

Great suggestions from bits in particular! Taking all the metaphors inherent in our language and tasting, smelling, feeling them out before letting them into the wild to attract people.

In summary, people like to Gain, Take, Increase, and be part of the future, or at least not part of the past
more than have, be, eliminate, and reduce

Thanks.  Language is so important.

‘A man was drowning in the lake near a little village. Many people around tried to reach out their hands in order to save him, shouting “Give me your hand! Give me your hand!…” But he didn’t hear them, he just continued to flounder and to drown.

A Wiseman, who was walking through the village, came near to the lake and asked “Who’s that man?” Someone answered “He’s the most stingy man in our village!” The Wiseman went near the water, stretched out his arm and told him “Take my hand!” Immediately the stingy one grabbed the Wiseman’s hand and saved himself.’

From traditional Sufi tales

 

[House]

If there was a way to accept BitUSD/AU without the eftpos facilities that cost an arm and a leg we would set it up in a pinch.

!! I think we have a new Delegate brewing here.

Step 1: Gather with some talented, motivated friends and write up a proposal for a Delegate outlining how you will set up bitUSD/AU.
Step 2: If you need start capital, promise away some % of your future Delegate salary, or ask for donations or a grant from I3.
Step 3: Set up your business and accept bitUSD with your bitUSD/AU service.
Step 4: ? ? ?
Step 5: Profit!

Sounds great CLains. Not sure if that is aimed at me as I am not as smart as you fellas and wouldn't know where to begin. I have all the motivation in the world to bolster BTS and I promote it to friends and colleagues everyday. I would also love to be a delegate but I don't want to be a rusty ol' cog in our pristine time piece.
Sure don't want to be asking for grants or start up capital from our community. I'm happy to contribute to our platform going forward, just don't have the smarts to implement a solution for bitUSD/AU payment gateway,

[CLains]

If there was a way to accept BitUSD/AU without the eftpos facilities that cost an arm and a leg we would set it up in a pinch.

!! I think we have a new Delegate brewing here.

Step 1: Gather with some talented, motivated friends and write up a proposal for a Delegate outlining how you will set up bitUSD/AU.
Step 2: If you need start capital, promise away some % of your future Delegate salary, or ask for donations or a grant from I3.
Step 3: Set up your business and accept bitUSD with your bitUSD/AU service.
Step 4: ? ? ?
Step 5: Profit!

[CLains]

Another thing,

While many of us are tempted to promote BTS with a high % yeild or a referral program, this is probably not the crucial selling point for merchants. Professionalism, speed, reliability, efficiency and simplicity I would assume is what merchants want. They just want to focus on selling their beloved products without having to worry about all that jazz.

I agree with Rune that when we are pitching BTS as a bank or personal vault it is at least worth looking very seriously into the idea of fixing a high yield, but I agree with Ander and Clout here that Rune's analogy to BTC regarding sell-pressure from merchants fails in the case of bitUSD: at least bitUSD demands collateral.

But we need to be careful here. If total supply of bitUSD is shrinking, then it seems to me there will likely be BTS sell pressure. At least it would matter a lot if we prevent merchants going out of bitUSD right away, and rather have them hold on to it a while, say 30 days ..

Think velocity: If we double the average holding time from buy (USD-->bitUSD) to sell (bitUSD -> USD), we double the minimum market cap of bitUSD as well. In the limit, if bitUSD was used the very trillionth of a second it was bought and sold into USD, then we would only need 1 bitUSD market cap to do a trillion bitUSD worth of transactions per second.

?? Am I thinking straight

[House]

Can I just add that my wife and I are about to open a retail store, (looking at franchise) and I would just love to be able to accept something like Bitusd. Even though we are here in Australia it is still applicable. Shame it is labeled USD.
If there was a way to accept BitUSD/AU without the eftpos facilities that cost an arm and a leg we would set it up in a pinch.

[CLains]

Excellent pitch BM!

Everyone is getting excited just by seeing how everything comes together, and that fuels into energy for coming up with suggestions. Keep posting things like this regularly and our precious market cap will keep rising, even before the push

Great suggestions from bits in particular! Taking all the metaphors inherent in our language and tasting, smelling, feeling them out before letting them into the wild to attract people.

In summary, people like to Gain, Take, Increase, and be part of the future, or at least not part of the past
more than have, be, eliminate, and reduce

[liondani]

From the time the customer makes a payment you start earning the best interest the market can offer on your funds.

As it is stated I don't see any difference with traditional banks. I hear the same thing from them... But the best they "can" give is for example 0.5% interest...
How can we convince them that the best we can give has nothing to do compared with the best we "can" give they are talking about?...

We must make a more powerful statement maybe based on real facts. For example:

Our merchants already earned an average of 7%* interest the last one year.What about you?

*the interest rates change dynamically depended on the market forces

[betax]

I am loving the new pitch for Merchants, and pitching for benefits. What problem are we solving for each type of user? Once you start focusing in each demography you realise that with little extra effort (ie creating a demo web cart) how many users you can attract. Find a benefit for the customer and pitch it, look at https://thegrid.io/ just pitching to solve the design pain of each website.

Bitshares is a Bank and a Exchange, Banks need merchants, merchants need banks.

A huge extra benefit (and simple feature to add) would be Auto conversion from Currencies, charge in bitCNY (Eur,GBP) and auto convert to bitUSD. Be able to query the blockchain to get the latest rate.

[bitmarket]

Additional important features:

1. No reserves held. Receive 100% of the payment immediately.
2. No credit check or history required. Everyone accepted.

[Shentist]

we have to advertise to everyone, because now we are competing with everyone - including Bitcoin!

and a important point is - we don't know which feature or which group of people will be attracted to BTS, bitUSD or something else

so in my opinion to market it to everyone as possible is key

identify a group which could improve with bitUSD - as an example recuring payments on pornsides!

store your value without trusting anyone - liberals etc.

- to identify the needed features is important and to impliment them

1. enable recurring payments
2. lightweight clients for mobile applications
3. easy using (in my opinion everything in crypto is to complicated for massadaption). storing keys etc. should be done easier. i am pretty sure the masses don't care about trusting 3rd parties or anything, but want to know if they loose or someone stole the privatekey, they could save the lost money (multisig maybe the solution?)

[jamesc]

Perhaps a wordpress plugin that would be easier when we get web enabled.   Another tricky merchant feature from crypto is recurring payments.  This can be solved by a good phone app only nice to have a synchronizing backup that transfers onto another phone.  Basically the phone is always on or mostly on and can sign the transaction on a scheulder.  You probably have to remember to start the app (or better) have it running to say receive your private mail.  Worst case, at least you don't have to remember all your recurring payments.

[julian1]

BitUSD is fiat to replace fiat. Targeting online merchant payment systems, by getting it integrated into the main branches of web-cart repositories is a ridiculously brilliant idea.

[zerosum]

Looks Excellent. Maybe benefit of global reach -  Start accepting payments from around the world now!

While thats obviously a great feature, major payment processors are global. Theres no added value relative to competitors in that regard.

I do not know... some online entities had refused  to accept my US credit card as an inferior Visa product  apparently.

[jamesc]

I think you can offer some proof (only slightly geeky)...  Really, I think people are just dazed, as in it sounds too good to be true.  Or, can I trust it?  You know the old saying: if it sounds too good to be true, it is probably another technology breakthrough.

Maybe this can be simplified ... but something this spelled out...


#1) because we not even in the same category of apple-pay, this is most important to me:

>>> You own BitUSD just like you own your phone..
>>> BitUSD is point-of-sale fast
>>> BitUSD is DOUBLE its market cap
>>> Hold BitUSD for a rainy day
>>> *BitUSD is recycled and good for the environment

* All BitUSD is re-cycled every month ensuring it is liquid and collateralized.  The BitUSD network operates quickly with very little electricity.  Upon entry or exit of BitUSD, you'll take advantage of an active market competing to fill your order as close to the traditional US Dollar price as possible. 

[clout]

Looks Excellent. Maybe benefit of global reach -  Start accepting payments from around the world now!

While thats obviously a great feature, major payment processors are global. Theres no added value relative to competitors in that regard.

[clout]

I don't think we should focus too much on merchant adoption. It never really seemed to mean much for bitcoins price, and like others have mentioned, at best it will be the merchants currently accepting bitcoin that will begin to also accept bitUSD.

1) Merchant adoption in bitcoin results in merchants having to sell the bitcoin immediately, to avoid the volatility.  Whereas with bitUSD, they dont.  So merchant adoption for bitUSD should be more beneficial to us.

This is the core assumption that this entire discussion stands or falls on. Currently I don't think this is true at all. 99% of merchants will want to sell their bitUSD instantly, just like they do with bitcoin. Anything that involves installing complicated software (for small merchants) or means dealing with employee access to private keys (for large merchants) will simply not be considered - especially when we are not able to argue that it will actually bring any immediate benefit in sales (since the base of actively spending bitUSD users is currently nothing more than a rounding error).

bitUSD needs to be extremely well established as a store of wealth with a proven track record before any non-true believer merchant will hold them. Even the true believers are probably currently caught in bitcoins suffocating grib of altcoin hate, and will resist bitUSD just based on that. Any shop that currently has significant bitcoin sales might even fear integrating bitUSD because the loyal bitcoiners will punish them for supporting an "evil altcoin".

I don't oppose going after merchants. I just think now is way too early, and I think that the way to getting it out there to the merchants should be through the already established payment systems. Anyway, I'm not even saying this because I oppose having a marketing pitch now, and I don't oppose the effort in this thread, it will clearly be effective to have some simple way for those few and precious early true believers to get introduced into the system. I just think it is important that we don't get carried away into thinking that "once x takes bitUSD we are going to the moon!!!" like bitcoin was, and especially that we don't spend any significant resources on that effort.

BitUSD is a currency. They don't need to hold it. All we care about is that they are not accepting BTS (an asset we hope to accumulate value) and immediately selling it.

[Rune]

I don't think we should focus too much on merchant adoption. It never really seemed to mean much for bitcoins price, and like others have mentioned, at best it will be the merchants currently accepting bitcoin that will begin to also accept bitUSD.

1) Merchant adoption in bitcoin results in merchants having to sell the bitcoin immediately, to avoid the volatility.  Whereas with bitUSD, they dont.  So merchant adoption for bitUSD should be more beneficial to us.

This is the core assumption that this entire discussion stands or falls on. Currently I don't think this is true at all. 99% of merchants will want to sell their bitUSD instantly, just like they do with bitcoin. Anything that involves installing complicated software (for small merchants) or means dealing with employee access to private keys (for large merchants) will simply not be considered - especially when we are not able to argue that it will actually bring any immediate benefit in sales (since the base of actively spending bitUSD users is currently nothing more than a rounding error).

bitUSD needs to be extremely well established as a store of wealth with a proven track record before any non-true believer merchant will hold them. Even the true believers are probably currently caught in bitcoins suffocating grib of altcoin hate, and will resist bitUSD just based on that. Any shop that currently has significant bitcoin sales might even fear integrating bitUSD because the loyal bitcoiners will punish them for supporting an "evil altcoin".

I don't oppose going after merchants. I just think now is way too early, and I think that the way to getting it out there to the merchants should be through the already established payment systems. Anyway, I'm not even saying this because I oppose having a marketing pitch now, and I don't oppose the effort in this thread, it will clearly be effective to have some simple way for those few and precious early true believers to get introduced into the system. I just think it is important that we don't get carried away into thinking that "once x takes bitUSD we are going to the moon!!!" like bitcoin was, and especially that we don't spend any significant resources on that effort.

[zerosum]

I don't think we should focus too much on merchant adoption. It never really seemed to mean much for bitcoins price, and like others have mentioned, at best it will be the merchants currently accepting bitcoin that will begin to also accept bitUSD. The real issue, however, is that few people will be spending bitUSD for anything other than the novelty of it (unless its for drugs - the dark markets are the only place where getting merchants on board actually means anything).

I think we should focus on promoting bitassets as places to put your savings, and then just try to grow the bitshares market cap. At about the time in our life cycle where getting regular merchants on board will begin to matter, coinbase and bitpay will integrate us on their own initiative.

Of course there is nothing wrong with working out a pitch and doing some outreach, but I'd definitely vote against any initiative that would allocate serious development or marketing resources towards getting traditional merchants to accept bitUSD. If we want to see bitUSD used for trade, then lets fork openbazaar and integrate it for profit into BTS with easy to use, decentralized merchant hosting by nodes. In fact lets hire the best of the current OB team as delegates to do it full time! Just getting the concept and roadmap down and publicizing a whitepaper about it would attract way more attention than almost any amount of traditional merchant integration. Headhunting just a single OB developer would make /r/bitcoin explode with rage and that would give us lots of publicity with a huge positive effect on our market cap.

In fact I'm probably going to research who the best of their developers are, and approach them to ensure that they understand that they could be doing what they currently do, but full time with a competetive salary.

I totally disagree! Going after the merchants is a must.

OP is good, some of the suggestions are even better!

Go BTS! Go bitUSD!
 

[Ander]

I don't think we should focus too much on merchant adoption. It never really seemed to mean much for bitcoins price, and like others have mentioned, at best it will be the merchants currently accepting bitcoin that will begin to also accept bitUSD.

1) Merchant adoption in bitcoin results in merchants having to sell the bitcoin immediately, to avoid the volatility.  Whereas with bitUSD, they dont.  So merchant adoption for bitUSD should be more beneficial to us.

2) Merchant adoption of bitUSD use means that there is more demand for bitUSD to exist -> more bitUSD existing leads to increased BTS market cap to support it.

Our situation is a bit different than bitcoin's.  Rather than adoption resulting in bitcoin sales, for bitUSD adoption results in greater demand for the asset that backs bitUSD, which is BTS.  Bitcoin doesnt have anything analogous to this. 


3) Pushing merchant adoption is important because it highlights one of our main advantages over bitcoin - the price stability. 


4) By getting merchants to adopt bitUSD, we are building our own market, our own user base.  We are growing the size of the pie that currently uses digital currencies, rather than only trying to take it from bitcoin.   


5) Actually being used is one of the most important things for maintaining a high market cap.  Bitcoin actually gets spent.  Litecoin and Dogecoin actually get spent, some places.  Ripple is actually being used by a couple banks.  We want our main use case - bitUSD, to get used a lot as well. 



Of course, bitUSD's use case as a savings account is also very valuable, and should and is being worked on. 

Recruiting of developers of other projects to work for bitshares as a paid delegate is also very valuable. 

We can do all these things at once.

[Rune]

I don't think we should focus too much on merchant adoption. It never really seemed to mean much for bitcoins price, and like others have mentioned, at best it will be the merchants currently accepting bitcoin that will begin to also accept bitUSD. The real issue, however, is that few people will be spending bitUSD for anything other than the novelty of it (unless its for drugs - the dark markets are the only place where getting merchants on board actually means anything).

I think we should focus on promoting bitassets as places to put your savings, and then just try to grow the bitshares market cap. At about the time in our life cycle where getting regular merchants on board will begin to matter, coinbase and bitpay will integrate us on their own initiative.

Of course there is nothing wrong with working out a pitch and doing some outreach, but I'd definitely vote against any initiative that would allocate serious development or marketing resources towards getting traditional merchants to accept bitUSD. If we want to see bitUSD used for trade, then lets fork openbazaar and integrate it for profit into BTS with easy to use, decentralized merchant hosting by nodes. In fact lets hire the best of the current OB team as delegates to do it full time! Just getting the concept and roadmap down and publicizing a whitepaper about it would attract way more attention than almost any amount of traditional merchant integration. Headhunting just a single OB developer would make /r/bitcoin explode with rage and that would give us lots of publicity with a huge positive effect on our market cap.

In fact I'm probably going to research who the best of their developers are, and approach them to ensure that they understand that they could be doing what they currently do, but full time with a competetive salary.

[fluxer555]

Excellent - Also, BitUSD would completely do away with the need for services like the recently setup https://bitreserve.org started by one of the founders of CNET.

Please, please, please learn from the marketing of https://bitreserve.org !

[lafona]

Looks good. You might want to add something about pricing and transactions being in dollars, seems obvious but they might not think of the benefits over btc. Specifically to reduce volatility exposure and simplify transactions/pricing. Something like

Settle in dollars: Reduce exposure to volatility and simplify transactions

or

Simplify transactions: no currency conversions, no making change

I am excited though. Go Bitshares!

[WildWex]

Excellent - Also, BitUSD would completely do away with the need for services like the recently setup https://bitreserve.org started by one of the founders of CNET.

[hpenvy]

A few suggestions on these three items, inspired by your suggestion to "Help turn everything into a positive".

Improve Cashflow

You have immediate access to the proceeds from your sale without any delays or holding periods.

Eliminate Chargebacks

You are in control of your funds and no one can hit you with a chargeback after you have delivered the goods.

Reduce Liability

Eliminate the need to collect sensitive financial information form your customers.

Improve Cashflow

You have Gain immediate access to the proceeds from your sale without any delays or holding periods.

Eliminate Chargebacks --'eliminate' is just not an attractive word IMO

Chargebacks are History

You are in Take control of your funds! With BitUSD, chargebacks are a thing of the past.

--or replace BitUSD with a phrase which articulates the mechanism for eliminating chargebacks
--'Chargebacks are history' is just as good as saying 'welcome to the future'

Reduce Liability
Eliminate the need to collect sensitive financial information form your customers.

Increased Security
Be free from the worry of managing customer's sensitive financial information.

Edit:
In summary, people like to Gain, Take, Increase, and be part of the future, or at least not part of the past
more than have, be, eliminate, and reduce

Great modifications, love the new phrasing about chargebacks are history.

[GaltReport]

I have a feeling that many of the first merchants to adopt BitUSD will be merchants who are already accepting Bitcoin. I would mention something about the stability of BitUSD vs. the volatility of Bitcoin. i.e.; you won't have to worry about immediately converting sales in digital currency over to fiat, as BitUSD has stability.

We are assuming on/off ramps and liquidity... because that is guaranteed to come.
We are assuming 99% of merchants don't care about anything other than getting to Fiat and not being exposed to volatility... so for the purposes of the merchants we are pitching to BitUSD needs to be the mental equivalent to actual USD.   

Remember... we know and care about how/why it works, merchants just care that it works and what the final result is.   

With the stuff we are working on I hope to find a solution where everyone can just use BitUSD as a dollar with no conversion spread.

for everything you said above.

[lovejoy]

A few suggestions on these three items, inspired by your suggestion to "Help turn everything into a positive".

Improve Cashflow

You have immediate access to the proceeds from your sale without any delays or holding periods.

Eliminate Chargebacks

You are in control of your funds and no one can hit you with a chargeback after you have delivered the goods.

Reduce Liability

Eliminate the need to collect sensitive financial information form your customers.

Improve Cashflow

You have Gain immediate access to the proceeds from your sale without any delays or holding periods.

Eliminate Chargebacks --'eliminate' is just not an attractive word IMO

Chargebacks are History

You are in Take control of your funds! With BitUSD, chargebacks are a thing of the past.

--or replace BitUSD with a phrase which articulates the mechanism for eliminating chargebacks
--'Chargebacks are history' is just as good as saying 'welcome to the future'

Reduce Liability
Eliminate the need to collect sensitive financial information form your customers.

Increased Security
Be free from the worry of managing customer's sensitive financial information.

Edit:
In summary, people like to Gain, Take, Increase, and be part of the future, or at least not part of the past
more than have, be, eliminate, and reduce

[fluxer555]

Eliminate Chargebacks

You are in control of your funds and no one can hit you with a chargeback after you have delivered the goods.

Strike for being too wordy and sounding like a "catch".

The merchants honesty should be implied and not questioned within the pitch.

[bobmaloney]

Eliminate Chargebacks

You are in control of your funds and no one can hit you with a chargeback after you have delivered the goods.

Strike for being too wordy and sounding like a "catch".

The merchants honesty should be implied and not questioned within the pitch.

[starspirit]

Looks Excellent. Maybe benefit of global reach -  Start accepting payments from around the world now!

[hadrian]

edit:

Looks Excellent. Maybe benefit of global reach -  Start accepting payments from around the world now!

This is very important

Increase Profits

At just $0.02 per transaction you can increase your profit margins by several percent by eliminating credit card fees.

Am I right in thinking it is the customer who would pay the transaction fee when making a purchase?

What I mean is, aren't they 'push' transactions, whereby the customer pays the transaction fee?
Therefore when pitching to merchants can't we say that there is no transaction fee for them to pay when they sell?

[julian1]

Looks Excellent. Maybe benefit of global reach -  Start accepting payments from around the world now!

[hpenvy]

Sounds good, with the assumption that on/off ramps will be in place when this goes up.

We are assuming 99% of merchants don't care about anything other than getting to Fiat and not being exposed to volatility... so for the purposes of the merchants we are pitching to BitUSD needs to be the mental equivalent to actual USD.   

Remember... we know and care about how/why it works, merchants just care that it works and what the final result is.   

With the stuff we are working on I hope to find a solution where everyone can just use BitUSD as a dollar with no conversion spread.

Awesome. But I'd also argue that security is a concern for merchants using a new system. It would be easy enough to reassure them that transactions are secure.

 

[donkeypong]

Sounds good, with the assumption that on/off ramps will be in place when this goes up.

We are assuming 99% of merchants don't care about anything other than getting to Fiat and not being exposed to volatility... so for the purposes of the merchants we are pitching to BitUSD needs to be the mental equivalent to actual USD.   

Remember... we know and care about how/why it works, merchants just care that it works and what the final result is.   

With the stuff we are working on I hope to find a solution where everyone can just use BitUSD as a dollar with no conversion spread.

Awesome. But I'd also argue that security is a concern for merchants using a new system. It would be easy enough to reassure them that transactions are secure.

[hadrian]

The only other thing I can think of here is to mention the coolness factor.  Just like 'bitcoin accepted here' can lead to merchants getting new business from bitcoiners, so can 'bitUSD accepted here'. 

Yes. BitUSD would bring in new customers and gain the merchant coverage in the media. This effect is most prominent when you are among the first merchants to adopt (not so effective now with Bitcoin). This is a very good selling point if there are merchants who hesitate when they don't see others doing it! There must be solid examples of this happening with Bitcoin, which could be used to convince merchants. I believe these sort of new customers were shown to spend more too!

With BitUSD customers don't need to do any mental arithmetic to convert from BitUSD to USD - benefit over Bitcoin.

With BitUSD, as a result of the increased profits from lowered fees, the merchant can offer a discount to customers. This discount is OBVIOUS with the BitUSD price against the USD price - benefit!

[bytemaster]

I have a feeling that many of the first merchants to adopt BitUSD will be merchants who are already accepting Bitcoin. I would mention something about the stability of BitUSD vs. the volatility of Bitcoin. i.e.; you won't have to worry about immediately converting sales in digital currency over to fiat, as BitUSD has stability.

We are assuming on/off ramps and liquidity... because that is guaranteed to come.
We are assuming 99% of merchants don't care about anything other than getting to Fiat and not being exposed to volatility... so for the purposes of the merchants we are pitching to BitUSD needs to be the mental equivalent to actual USD.   

Remember... we know and care about how/why it works, merchants just care that it works and what the final result is.   

With the stuff we are working on I hope to find a solution where everyone can just use BitUSD as a dollar with no conversion spread.

[hadrian]

Reduce Liability

Eliminate the need to collect sensitive financial information form your customers.

Spotted a typo (in case you copy & paste to somewhere important)

Increase Profits

At just $0.02 per transaction you can increase your profit margins by several percent by eliminating credit card fees.

Am I right in thinking it is the customer who would pay the transaction fee when making a purchase?

[hpenvy]

Looks solid:

- High risk merchants should have a slightly modified version focusing in on immediate profit
- On/off ramps will be critical.  Payment processors work so well in this space because the business can designate how much is paid in coin, how much in fiat

[Ander]

The only other thing I can think of here is to mention the coolness factor.  Just like 'bitcoin accepted here' can lead to merchants getting new business from bitcoiners, so can 'bitUSD accepted here'. 

[Method-X]

I am working to outline the pitch for merchants and would welcome feedback on ways to simplify and amplify the impact of the primary benefits for using BitUSD.    Lets focus on BENEFITS and not FEATURES.    Ie:  400 HP engine == feature, massive acceleration == Benefit.    Help turn everything into a positive rather than using negatives.    Recommendation on images to go along with these topics would also help.


Increase Profits

At just $0.02 per transaction you can increase your profit margins by several percent by eliminating credit card fees.

Improve Cashflow

You have immediate access to the proceeds from your sale without any delays or holding periods.

Earn interest on your Float

From the time the customer makes a payment you start earning the best interest the market can offer on your funds.

Eliminate Chargebacks

You are in control of your funds and no one can hit you with a chargeback after you have delivered the goods.

Reduce Liability

Eliminate the need to collect sensitive financial information form your customers.

No Limits

Free your business from the dependency on banking relationships.

This is very good. I can't see much room for improvement here.

[donkeypong]

I think you will need on/off ramps available before you can sell this. Merchants will need to be able to convert to fiat. Mainly to pay wages, taxes, and for some, piece of mind in this new unproven frontier.

Exactly. Otherwise, they'll need to know that BTS and BitUSD are freely exchangeable from one to the other, but converting to actual fiat...may be slow, inconvenient, and expensive. Which nullifies many of the other benefits, until there are easy and affordable on/off ramps. 

[Ggozzo]

I think you will need on/off ramps available before you can sell this. Merchants will need to be able to convert to fiat. Mainly to pay wages, taxes, and for some, piece of mind in this new unproven frontier.

[matador123]

I have a feeling that many of the first merchants to adopt BitUSD will be merchants who are already accepting Bitcoin. I would mention something about the stability of BitUSD vs. the volatility of Bitcoin. i.e.; you won't have to worry about immediately converting sales in digital currency over to fiat, as BitUSD has stability.

[bytemaster]

I am working to outline the pitch for merchants and would welcome feedback on ways to simplify and amplify the impact of the primary benefits for using BitUSD.    Lets focus on BENEFITS and not FEATURES.    Ie:  400 HP engine == feature, massive acceleration == Benefit.    Help turn everything into a positive rather than using negatives.    Recommendation on images to go along with these topics would also help.


Increase Profits

At just $0.02 per transaction you can increase your profit margins by several percent by eliminating credit card fees.

Improve Cashflow

You have immediate access to the proceeds from your sale without any delays or holding periods.

Earn interest on your Float

From the time the customer makes a payment you start earning the best interest the market can offer on your funds.

Eliminate Chargebacks

You are in control of your funds and no one can hit you with a chargeback after you have delivered the goods.

Reduce Liability

Eliminate the need to collect sensitive financial information form your customers.

No Limits

Free your business from the dependency on banking relationships.