****** / Bitcoin on WooCommerce

[Brunezy]

Has anybody added CoinBase Commerce as a payment gateway for WooCommerce?

I absolutely hate the PayPal and Stripe fees, and it looks like there are zero fees for accepting Bitcoin, Ethereum, Litecoin and Bitcoin Cash through Coinbase Commerce!

 

[fisicx]

There are plenty of bitcoin payment plugins but getting people to use them is a whole different ballgame.

 

[james_firmsites]

Has anybody added CoinBase Commerce as a payment gateway for WooCommerce?

I absolutely hate the PayPal and Stripe fees, and it looks like there are zero fees for accepting Bitcoin, Ethereum, Litecoin and Bitcoin Cash through Coinbase Commerce!

There is no "zero fees" method for ecommerce. Getting customers to BACS you money is the cheapest option (short of paying cash) but that takes time which costs. Moving money in and out of ****** will attract fees and the cost & time of managing an unusual payment method would quickly outweigh the benefits. That's before we consider the volatility of the ****** markets.

No one likes paying paypal, but they exist because they are cheaper and easier than the alternatives. In my view Stripe's fees are far more reasonable but ultimately providing more options for payment is normally better.

Hopefully one day things will change but for now, unless your going for the novelty factor I would leave this alone, it simply is not worth the hassle of trying to bring the customers with you.

 

[Bainzee]

although BACS is the cheapest option for online businesses but from my experience, end users tend to be pout off by it due to trust and hassle.

I advise all ecommerce businesses to have as many payment acceptance methods as possible and PayPal being one of them. If you're a business which targets international customers then its advised to have local payment options for that country ie. Sofort, Ideal are very good options for European customers. the more options you present, the higher the conversion, higher the conversion = more sales.
Last time I checked, Coinbase charge 1% on all transactions.

 

[Brunezy]

There is no "zero fees" method for ecommerce.

Actually, there are zero fees for the merchant when using Coinbase Commerce. I know other companies like BitPay and CoinGate charge a 1% - 2% fee on top, but Coinbase Commerce don't.

 

[Brunezy]

Last time I checked, Coinbase charge 1% on all transactions.

Coinbase Commerce is free for merchants : support.coinbase[DOT]com/customer/portal/articles/1277919-what-fees-does-coinbase-charge-for-merchant-processing-

 

[Brunezy]

I've found an integration for Coinbase Commerce and WooCommerce called WooCoinbase - looks to be working well so far!

 

[james_firmsites]

Actually, there are zero fees for the merchant when using Coinbase Commerce. I know other companies like BitPay and CoinGate charge a 1% - 2% fee on top, but Coinbase Commerce don't.

I'm sorry, as I really am not trying to be a pendant, but that does not make it zero fees. As businesses we have to look at the net value of using services/gateways against our businesses. To any casual reader of the post they could be mislead into thinking the Coinbase method is 0% when it's clearly not.

Paypal charge their fees up front but have no withdrawal fees. If they changed it so there was no transaction cost but it was 5% to transfer to a bank then it would have a cost of 5% regardless. Like I said before that's before you factor into the massive fluctuation in the ****** markets and the difficulty in convincing non-tech savvy customers to deal with a new type of payment method.

When selling on something like ebay I encourage customers to consider the cost of ebay + the cost of paypal since most of the time the two are unavoidable. Similarly to make a fair comparison you must include the full costs of being able to take the money out of coinbase and either use it as normal profit or buy more products/service for your business.

 

[Brunezy]

I'm sorry, as I really am not trying to be a pendant, but that does not make it zero fees.

I'm not too sure what you mean here.. Can you explain where you are seeing that there are any extra fees involved in using Coinbase? Or do you just mean "it will cost X% to convert from ****** back to fiat"?

I'm quite happy to hold whatever sales I make in ******, in the original currency - so for me that's a non-issue and is actually a zero-fee way of accumulating ******.

 

[james_firmsites]

I've found an integration for Coinbase Commerce and WooCommerce called WooCoinbase - looks to be working well so far!

how are you intending to get that money out? google "coinbase withdrawal uk" and you see lots of threads about people finding it difficult to get money into UK bank accounts. There are also fees for moving money out and converting money: https://support.coinbase.com/customer/en/portal/articles/2109597-coinbase-pricing-fees-disclosures

It is not, in any way shape or form free and from a business stand point seems to have a massive time commitment. See this reddit thread: https://www.reddit.com/r/CoinBase/comments/7hpjp0/withdraw_to_uk_bank_help/

Most businesses need to convert their sales back into normal money that they can use (unless HMRC, your landlord/bank, Tesco's and your suppliers have all started taking ****** without telling anyone).

So while you may be perfectly happy with the situation to anyone else reading this thread and thinking "great all I have to do is install WooCoinbase to avoid all those paypal fees" you can't the technology/logistics is just there....yet. Also WooCoinbase costs money which has to form part of your costs since paypal/stripe plugins are free.

No such thing as a free lunch I'm afraid.

 

[Brunezy]

how are you intending to get that money out?

i think you may be mistaking Coinbase (a platform for end-users to buy ******) with Coinbase Commerce (a merchant solution and gateway for accepting ****** payments).

take a look at the Coinbase Commerce-specific withdrawal process:

commerce.coinbase[DOT]com/withdraw

You just set up a Jaxx wallet, and all your ****** payments get sent there after each sale. You keep 100% of the sale.

If you wish to convert that to GBP / USD / EUR you can do so

Again, it's important to highlight that Coinbase ≠ Coinbase Commerce

 

[james_firmsites]

But that still does not make it free. You have to purchase a plugin and rely on two services which are only currently not charging fees. They have stated that certain transactions will attract network fees and again this is a common method for startups to run at a loss to build a business.

Then you have a highly volatile currency which you could wake up tomorrow and find the value doubled/halved or wiped out.

zero fees ≠ zero cost

Time + purchasing plugins + RISK = cost

You must balance that cost with the paypal and stripe fees which have orders of magnitude less risk

Like I said, you sound perfectly happy which is great but it is not a zero method and anyone reading this should go into it eyes open that there will be costs and they have to factor this in when comparing with paypal/stripe as in your original post.

 

[dan19900]

I've not tried them, had a nightmare with their support on a personal account in the past, not sure what their commerce support is like.

I use these guys, 0.5% fee and then it gets sent to Poloniex so another 0.1-0.2% fee:
https://www.coinpayments.net

Surprised more people don't accept ******, it's good publicity if nothing else. I get random traffic coming to my site all the time from when someones posted that I accept ****** somewhere.

 

[Anderz]

Its a simple no! I can't pay my supplier with that and my bank does not accept as legal currency either so why deal with it?