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Comment by rdl | Hacker News Reader

I'm curious what licit, low volume, etc. products actually would make sense to sell in Bitcoin vs. something else.

The best thing I can come up with is online-delivered services from non-US (and ideally, non-developed financial system) countries, to other non-developed-financial-system countries. Like, a guy in Zimbabwe who wants to provide an online service to someone from PNG. Which is really a stretch to imagine.

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The advantage to using Bitcoin is that there are no payment processing fees. What we're able to cut with BitcoinStore is that 1-10% fee that Visa, PayPal, et al. charge especially when dealing with products that have a high chargeback risks. So the products that sell best when using Bitcoin have high chargeback risks associated with them.

How do you fill the gap for me, the consumer, of not having chargebacks available? Chargebacks are a net plus for me.

This is usually filled by escrow services which I'm not sure this website has implemented. Even Silk Road has implemented this, so it's a deal-breaker for me.

Silk Road has implemented this because it is a market between sellers and buyers. BitcoinStore is a company selling stuff, having escrow would have no point at all.

How does the fact that it's a company instead of an individual change the picture at all? In both cases, escrow serves the same purpose: to safeguard against getting ripped off.

Assuming bitcoinstore hasn't ripped off their previous N customers, I'm fairly confident being purchaser N+1, especially if my transaction isn't "special" in any way.

They would have a lot to lose by ripping off customers, vs. a random seller on silkroad, so I'd feel comfortable up to a few thousand dollars.

I think I've actually bought something from Memorydealers before. I'm not sure of the relationship between bitcoinstore and Memorydealers. If they're the same entity, then I'd be fine up to $100k or so -- it's a real business.

That makes escrow less likely to be useful, but the chance doesn't go to zero, so it hardly has "no point at all".

Escrow has its own risk and cost. The hilarious thing with previous online currencies (E-Gold, OSGold, Pecunix, ...) was that the escrow providers themselves were often the weak link.

Well sure, but it's still useful, just not something you might automatically want.

My credit card issuer effectively acts as an escrow agent, and I love that fact when ordering from companies. It has saved me more than once, too.

High chargeback risk makes sense; the 1-3% fee otherwise doesn't really make a business, given how widespread credit cards are, etc., IMO.

So, selling prepaid cards online would be a particular niche, maybe, or other things which are cash-equivalent.

For the 1-3% fee businesses, it does actually make sense. Especially with really low-margin sites. Think of your local grocery store offering a cash discount because of credit card fees, those businesses really do exist on the margin.

Anything: the advantage is in not requiring any credit card and still being able to buy/sell on the Internet.

There's some countries where receiving pre-approved credit cards monthly in your inbox isn't the norm.

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