As an online retailer or a provider of online services, there are so many reasons why you would want to allow your customers to pay with crypto. Now, since no list would ever be elaborate enough to contain all of these reasons, we’ll have to settle for just five. So, here are the five most compelling reasons.
1. Potential for value appreciation
One of the best reasons to receive money in cryptocurrencies is the fact that their value might increase significantly.
Just think about inflation. They say that $100 in the 1950s would have a purchasing power of around $1,300 today. With cryptocurrencies, this is exactly what can happen.
You might be aware that in 2010, one guy paid for pizza with 10,000 BTC. Today that would be worth more than $671 million. Is this going to happen to you? Of course not! The chances of this are quite unlikely (although never impossible). The opposite could also be true: You might end up with a lower value than you initially earned.
Still, there are upcoming Binance listings every single day. Each shows new shifts in the value of your current crypto portfolio, and it’s exciting to keep track of these changes.
Are you going to be paid in these new coins? Probably not, but transitioning from BTC or ETH into some of these smaller coins requires fewer steps. You do it all from a crypto wallet where you already have crypto assets, and the exchange will be rather quick and inexpensive.
2. Fewer bank transactions
Cryptocurrencies operate on a DeFi principle, which means that there are fewer bank transactions and that there’s a lower financial interference in question.
First, this means that the costs are lower since financial institutions don’t have an expensive infrastructure and too many employees to support. This is why the fees of these transactions are lower.
Second, transactions are instant. They take minutes instead of hours and days, which means that, by default, there are fewer “pending” payments. Waiting for money to arrive is a huge problem, and it’s why the factoring industry exists in the first place. With these quick transactions, this is a problem that you won’t have to think about.
They work on weekends and holidays, which means that they aren’t affected by the bank’s working hours.
These last two benefits combined also mean that, in a scenario where you’re expecting a payment, it will take minutes to verify if it was paid or not. This doesn’t sound like that big but you would be surprised at how many bad actors there are in the business world who lie about the last payment being deposited in order to buy a few days. Tomorrow, they say that there was a mistake at the bank (but now they’ve paid again in full).
3. Attracting new customers
Many people are already used to paying with crypto. After all, they’re already buying other things with crypto, playing on anonymous casinos with this type of payment, and even paying for their subscriptions this way. For them, it would be more convenient just to include crypto in the offer.
There are a lot of customers from unbanked and underbanked areas, and these customers may be unable to purchase your products. They have the money, but they have no means of using it to pay for your goods. In this scenario, you’re losing a potential fortune.
With cryptocurrencies, all they need is a smartphone. Now, while you may be skeptical of the fact that people in unbanked areas have access to smartphones, you would be terribly wrong. There are over 7.2 billion smartphones currently in the world, and soon, there will be more smartphones than people. Each of these people has the potential to start a crypto wallet, which would allow them to pay.
In other words, for some people, a payment method is a deal breaker. Sure, they don’t get a crypto wallet just to buy from you, but the more payment methods you include, the wider the net you cast.
4. It’s expected of you
More and more online retail businesses are including cryptocurrencies as a potential payment option. With Bitcoin’s growing role in online retail, you are expected to support this form of payment.
Simply put, this is no longer 2015 where you had to be incredibly business- and tech-savvy in order to have BTC on your site. Today, everyone and their grandmother allows people to pay with crypto (for reasons we’ve listed in the previous section).
If you don’t have the option, not only are you losing audience, you’re suffering reputationally. Moreover, people might notice that you’re not accepting crypto payments even if they had no intention of paying in crypto. They’ll end up thinking less of you.
It does speak about the fact that your brand is slow to embrace new payment methods, even though one can hardly consider cryptocurrency payment new in 2024.
Moreover, with more and more services that you can pay for with this method, the expectations of customers for various industries to include them will also grow.
This is also more munition for the haters and an extra argument for people aiming to write a negative review to use against you. Saying that you don’t accept crypto payments is a legit criticism.
5. Greater privacy
Cryptocurrency transactions don’t require confirmation of the personal identity of information to be shared. A lot of people value their privacy, and if given a chance to make a transaction where it’s guaranteed, they’re bound to take it.
Now, this may sound a bit paradoxical since we live in an age where, wherever you turn, someone is collecting or selling your data. The problem is that while people accept this, they’re not really comfortable with it. Are they willing to pay to resolve this? No! Are they willing to stop using these services? Again, no!
However, if they had a simple and quick option to maintain their anonymity, you can bet they’d take it. If protecting their anonymity was as simple as clicking the Bitcoin icon over the Visa card icon, why wouldn’t they take the safer route?
The bottom line is that cryptocurrencies make staying anonymous much easier than ever before.
Lastly, there are some products that people are not that comfortable using for outings themselves. Adult toys are one example of products that a lot of people buy but would prefer if this stayed off their credit card statement. With crypto purchases this is guaranteed.
Including crypto payments as an option is always a positive thing
Allowing your customers to pay with crypto is smart from both relationship-building and even just purely financial standpoints. If you’re selling them the goods they need, the last thing you want is for them to walk away because you’re not supporting their payment method. Cryptos might actually be their preferred method, so including it solves a huge problem. As you can see from this list, it actually solves a lot of problems.
Also Read: The Future of Payments: Why ForumPay Leads the Way
