Merchant Marketing Pitch

[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.