Two of the country’s biggest names in e-commerce, Overstock.com and TigerDirect.com, earned themselves some press (and perhaps goodwill from the tech crowd) with their recent decisions to start accepting Bitcoin as payment.
Now, though, users of the controversial peer-to-peer digital system can spend their cryptocurrency in brick and mortar stores including Home Depot, CVS, Kmart and Sears as well as online at web retail granddaddy Amazon.com.
eGifter.com allows shoppers to pay for any of their 150+ digital gift cards in Bitcoin straight from the checkout line at national retail chains using their mobile app for iOS or Android. eGifter uses Bitcoin wallet Coinbase to process transactions, ensuring they’re secure.
“I’ve seen purchases come in for exact amounts like $124.68, so I know folks are paying using Bitcoin physically in-store,” said eGifter CEO Tyler Roye. “That’s the advantage, and a real opportunity with digital gift cards: you don’t have to buy more than you need, down to the penny.”
Roye sees accepting alternative payment methods like Bitcoin as a no-brainer given the crowd of early adopters buying and trading it.
Until chains like the Gap, GameStop and JC Penney start accepting the cryptocurrency through their own point of sales systems, eGifter.com acts as a workaround.
“Bitcoin users don’t have as many places to spend as they might like, and many of them have made quite a bit of money in the past year,” he said, adding that the demographic likely to embrace peer-to-peer payment systems probably has a fair amount of disposable income to begin with.
“These big retailers will have to accept Bitcoin over time, but it’s going to be a process years in the making,” he said. “Therein lies the opportunity for folks like us.”
Two-year-old eGifter does, of course, accept traditional methods of payment like Visa, Mastercard, American Express and PayPal for its digital gift cards. To check out their full inventory, click here.
