Dell, the well known multinational computer manufacturer, accepts Bitcoins for purchases made from Dell.com through its partnership with Coinbase. Coinbase is not only a Bitcoin wallet but also an exchange, where Bitcoins are bought and sold for U.S. dollars at the market rate. Customers after selecting their product and filling in the shipment details just need to select Bitcoins from amongst the various options available.
Overstock.com Inc (NASDAQ: OSTK ), one of the major online retail destinations, welcomes shoppers paying in Bitcoins . Overstock.com is Bitcoin-ready for the full gamut of its offerings, from watches to furniture to bath accessories. Customers need to select Bitcoins as the payment option on the checkout page. Coinbase facilitates the buying process. The company’s Bitcoin sales were reported over $2 million (1% of total sales) after eight months (i.e. August 2014) of launching its Bitcoin payment platform.
Showroomprive.com , with its decision in September 2014 to accept Bitcoins as payment, became the largest company in Europe to do so. The online store offers a variety of products ranging from cosmetics to home ware. Paymium, a European cryptocurrency company, will be the payments processor for Bitcoin transactions.
WordPress , which started in 2003, is a web publishing service that allows users to create a blog or website and is the world’s largest self-hosted blogging tool. It has what is considered what is the easiest-to-use content management system (CMS) for blog and website creation. WordPress is open to Bitcoin as a form of payment.
Another retail giant that accepts Bitcoins is newegg . It specializes in computer hardware, electronics, software, gaming, cell phones and accessories along with sporting goods and more.
The Latvian airline airBaltic became the world’s fist airline to accept Bitcoins , as announced in July 2014. Passengers can pay for their tickets using Bitcoins for reservations to over 60 destinations. The airline has a tie-in with Bitpay (third party payment processor) for euro price conversion into Bitcoins. Customers can avail the Bitcoin payment option to buy the cheapest tickets, known as airBaltic basis class. The airlines carried over 2.95 million passengers in the year 2013. Other than airBaltic, tickets of
Air Lituanica can also be bought using Bitcoins . Air Lituanica is another European airline covering major European cities.
In the travel category, CheapAir.com , became the first online travel booking agency to introduce a payment system via Bitcoins in November 2013. The company in a July press release announced that its sale of flights and hotels in Bitcoin exceeded $1.5 million.
Expedia Inc (NASDAQ: EXPE ), a major online travel booking company, started accepting Bitcoins for reservations of hotel bookings (there are around 45,000 listed hotels on the site). Expedia has teamed up with Coinbase for its Bitcoin processing. The company plans to expand the payment system via Bitcoins to other segments of its business, like flight bookings.
REEDS Jewelers Inc, headquartered in North Carolina with retail stores in 65 locations across 15 states (click for locations ), is another big name that accepts Bitcoins. The chain was founded in 1946 as a single hometown store. The retailer also has an online presence. REEDS Jewelers Inc is the first fine jeweler to accept Bitcoins for online transactions, as well as in store shopping at all its retail locations.
DISH Network Corp (NASDAQ: DISH ), the U.S. satellite provider launched a platform for Bitcoin payments in May 2014. Dish network reported revenue of $13.9 billion in 2013 has a subscriber’s base of more than 14 million and over 30,000 employees.
Reddit Inc is a social networking, entertainment and news website where registered members can post links, texts and content. Bitcoins are accepted by Reddit (since early 2013) as payment for Reddit Gold which is a premium membership program and comes with additional features and products.
Home & Stone, a Brooklyn showroom offers premium bathroom and kitchen fixtures, sinks and hardware (cabinets, doors, etc) accepts payment in Bitcoins .
To give you more variety on the takers of Bitcoins, there is OKCupid, a dating site launched in 2004 and having over 12 million users. OKCupid was acquired by InterActiveCorp (IAC) (NASDAQ: IACI), an internet and media company, in 2011 (Disclosure: Investopedia is an IAC Company). Though OkCupid is free for people who wish to join, it offers a special 'A-List' premium subscription with has additional features and is paid. The payment can be made using Bitcoins.
A few other names accepting Bitcoins as payment are CeX (a platform to buy, sell and exchange a range of technology and entertainment products), TigerDirect.com (online retailer of computers and consumer electronics),
Monoprix (French retail chain), Bitcoin Shop (products from cameras to makeup, Dogecoin and Litecoin are also accepted here),
LuxuryBitcoinStore (products from iPhones to handbags), memorydealers (transceivers, hardware and memory), honest brew (UK-based online beer platform), etc.
Using Gift Cards
To circumvent the problem of direct acceptability of Bitcoins at stores, people can shop at the same stores (for the most part) via gift cards. There are many gift card businesses that accept Bitcoins and these can further be used at a large number of outlets and stores, including Amazon, Wal-Mart and Nike. Some of the gift card companies are eGifter , Gyft , Giftcard Zen and
GiftcardBTC . Be sure to read the terms and conditions before assuming the feasablity of purchases using this method.
