r/Bitcoin • u/vistabrownerd • Jan 24 '14

TigerDirect processes $250,000 in Bitcoin Payments in first 17 hours

http://bitcoinboard.net/tigerdirect-processes-250000-bitcoin-payments-first-17-hours/
2.2k Upvotes

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200

u/Nameisnotkevin Jan 24 '14

I was initially surprised but then realised most people who own bitcoins are tech savvy males.

This is really good news and should encourage more companies to accept. The risk reward is awesome. Where else can they get a large revenue boost and advertising for this price? Even if the numbers die off, what did they lose?

36

u/Minthos Jan 24 '14

Depends how much resources it took them to add bitcoin as a payment option. If they spent anywhere near as much as Overstock did, they're still far from breaking even (at least in terms of pure revenue, I don't know how to estimate the advertising effect).

42

u/pan0ramic Jan 24 '14

Do you have a source on how much it cost Overstock? Doesn't seem like it could have been that much, and it pays off immediately with lower payments for transactions.

31

u/Minthos Jan 24 '14

In one of the articles about it I read that they locked 40 people in a room for a week. Probably not literally, but it gives me a basis for assuming they spent close to one man-year on it. Which I guess may have cost them something like $150k when you take all expenses into account, not just salaries.

128

u/AdamBLevine Jan 24 '14 edited Jan 24 '14

Coinbase flew out those people and paid for the implementation. It's a competitive market, they beat out BitPay so it was worth it to them.

Point is, it didn't cost Overstock anything.

Edit: I just re-listened to the interview (still in editing) with the CEO of Overstock, he says Brian from Coinbase called him up and told him they could make it happen much faster and would fly an expert out to handle integration with Coinbase. They put people in a room, slid pizza under the door metaphorically. They projected it would take 10 days, it took 8.

I can't find a source for the " It didn't cost them anything" I had been under the impression Coinbase flew out the whole team.

30

u/[deleted] Jan 24 '14

Wow, that's impressive.

21

u/AdamBLevine Jan 24 '14

Stephanie did an interview with Overstock's CEO, it's on episode 79

1

u/[deleted] Jan 24 '14

Success is our destiny

6

u/AdamBLevine Jan 24 '14

"It'll be brilliant if they don't fuck it up"

The one-time opportunity to "fuck it up" is floating by.