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.
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.
Because the bitcoin crowd has shown it's self time and time again to be perfectly rational agents.
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.
You tell your friends or post on the Internet that they did so, and more importantly, you don't purchase things from vendors that don't have a good reputation.
What do you do if a restaurant gives you horrible service? You don't sue them, because litigation is much more expensive than it's worth to you. Restaurants don't tend to provide good service out of respect for the law or fear of litigation, but rather out of the desire for continued business from customers.
The restaurant is just a terrible retort. I'm physically in a location to receive a service. This has nothing to do with paying for a product and not receiving it.
Of course if I'm receiving bad service in a restaurant I will speak with the manager. If he refuses to speak or help I will demand a check and pay without tipping. Simple as that.
Doesn't work with cash, and might not work depending on how the credit card company's arbitration works.
> The restaurant is just a terrible retort. I'm physically in a location to receive a service. This has nothing to do with paying for a product and not receiving it.
Your physical presence is irrelevant to the analogy. The point is that acting legitimately is in the interest of both the company and the customer.
> Of course if I'm receiving bad service in a restaurant I will speak with the manager. If he refuses to speak or help I will demand a check and pay without tipping. Simple as that.
Then you're out the cost of your meal. The restaurant gets your 20 bucks, and didn't have to provide good service, which is clearly profitable for them in this isolated case. So why don't all restaurants do that?
Looking at the other side of the equation- I've had TONS of customers attempt to cheat me in one way or another. Buyers have very little to lose and are much more likely to be irrational/outright thieves than someone who took the time to build up a business.
As a buyer I'll happily take a discount equal to the cost of CC transaction fees over the "buyer protections" any day of the week.
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.
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.
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.
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.
>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.
They will get business from the advertising not the payment method.
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.