What are the benefits for Merchants?
What are the benefits for Merchants?

Bitcoins have great properties for consumer transactions. Low fees mean you can pass the savings on to your customers and get a price advantage over other merchants. There are no chargebacks in Bitcoin, any confirmed transaction is protected by the full hashing power of the network. So businesses can accept bitcoins from any country in the world, with no risk of fraud or chargebacks.

Point-of-Sale (POS) Transactions

In retail stores, bitcoins can be used side-by-side with local currency and credit cards. The merchant will need some type of point-of-sale software, which can calculate the exchange rate. They can generate an address to the shopper and monitor their account to see the payment has been received.

Features to look for

Here are some common questions that merchants should ask:

Can I get a unique Bitcoin address for each transaction?
How is the exchange rate calculated?
How fast are payments approved?
What is my exchange rate risk?
How do I receive the funds?
Are there any fees involved?
How can I see a listing of my sales?
Payment providers

Merchant tools with USD exchange: BitPay, Coinbase, MtGox Merchant and WalletBit

Bitcoin-only merchant tools: AcceptBit.