Merchant Howto

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Revision as of 16:22, 10 April 2011 by Sgornick (talk | contribs) (Add section for listing on the Trade page.)
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This page is intended as a guide to assist merchants learn how to accept bitcoins for payment.

Manual

  1. Download a bitcoin client
  2. When a customer wants to buy something issue them with a bitcoin address
    • You can do this by clicking "New.." next to your address in the bitcoin client and sending that address to the customer
  3. When payment comes in from that address send the goods to your customer. Depending on your risk tolerance and the value of the purchase, you may wish to wait until the payment shows enough confirmations to protect against double spending.
  4. To issue a refund, obtain from the customer the bitcoin address where the refund payment should be sent. The refund address will likely be different from the address used when the customer sent payment, especially if an EWallet was used by the customer.

Automated

Setup a system (pointers to easy-to-use packaged systems should be added) that:

  1. When a customers orders something on your website it records
    • Bitcoin address that payment should be sent to
    • Order details (delivery address etc.)
    • Payment amount
  2. When payment arrives, checks that they have paid the correct amount (and refunds the from address otherwise) and informs you
    • You dispach the goods to the customer and mark the order as fulfilled
    • If you cannot dispach the goods you mark the order as denied and the system sends the customer a refund
  3. Pays money made to your bitcoin address

Common Errors

It has been observed several times that businesses try to funnel all orders through the same bitcoin address, and ask people to send some BTC, then send email describing the timing and the amount of the transaction to 'claim' it. This is not secure, since anyone can see the transaction details using a tool such as Block Explorer, or by inspecting the block chain database directly, and then try to claim someone else's transaction as theirs. Do not do this - give each customer a unique bitcoin address, as suggested in the manual section of this page.

Listing your business on the Bitcoin Trade page

Anyone can add and update a listing on the Trade:trade page. Just register if you haven't and add to the appropriate category. If you'ld like assistance, perhaps someone in the #bitcoin-marketing IRC channel would be willing to assist.

See Also

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