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We need Merchants USING Dash!

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TanteStefana

TanteStefana

Well-known member
Foundation Member
Looks like Dash is bouncing back pretty hard.

Still, I'm really getting worried here. A lot of time and money is being spent on the same things over and over, website and logo, marketing, etc... Don't get me wrong, I agree these things are important, but I see this gaping hole that isn't being worked on at all. That is merchant integration.

I believe we are losing ground on adoption. I realize the core team wants to do things in a nice linear fashion. Finish up Evolution, then make apps that will make Dash easier to use, then hope merchants will use apps someone else creates for them to accept Dash. However, Dash Evolution is complex and will still take a long time to debut, and in the meantime we are losing ground to others who see the importance of merchant adoption.

If we don't bring this highly neglected sector up to the level everything else has come to, we are going to win the battle but lose the war. We need merchant tools ASAP. And we need them to be decentralized so that merchants can choose which products and service combinations they want and that are most advantageous to them. But I see very little work in this direction. All we have is expensive credit cards that can be used in the existing commerce system, which in fact adds 4.5% to every purchase (along with the 3%+ the merchant has to pay) This is cool, especially if shake, or whatever their name is, can reduce the cost to free eventually, but it's NOT adoption!

Crypto-currencies have one big advantage to adoption, and that is cost! They're virtually free IF a merchant accepts the coins and holds. They're super cheap, around 1%, if a merchant chooses to cash out their coins for Fiat at their chosen exchange. THIS is where merchant integration should be focused. Helping merchants accept Dash (as an equal to fiat or credit cards) as payment. We need to get people to NEED to use Dash, and Dash alone. Because it is instant and secure (huge network) it's also private.

This needs to be fixed ASAP. We can't afford to wait for Evolution. By that time, we will have lost our head start and other coins will make inroads into the minds of merchants and users.

But how do we do this? The core team really doesn't understand the needs of merchants. We need a new team to do this work. To take over this kind of integration, this service to sell to merchants. We have a chicken or egg situation, and we simply have to create both at the same time.

Is there anyone out there who is considering working for Dash, the network (not core)? Can you provide ideas and hopefully solutions to this problem?

Something like square's Point of Sales solution? This could work for any small business, especially hobbyists flea markets, etc... We need to make REAL inroads into a marketplace, and as the Jackalope festival showed us, the easiest inroads would be wit free thinking, advantage seeking individual merchants. Lets make it so advantageous for them to use Dash, that it becomes the must-have and most desirable payment option.

But we need someone with the skill and vision to make this happen. if that's you, please talk to us here, please join in this discussion. Thank you so much!!!
 
Well said Tante. Unfortunately, the few individuals that control votes are pushing for the 'we want to be a bank' solution with a really complicated voting system.

I think the entire concept of crypto is getting lost in fixing internal problems that nobody cares about. The thing users want is mobile wallets to spend crypto and merchants need to accept and instantly convert to fiat. You nailed it - debit cards are not a solution. ATMs are also not a solution. Almost like everyone is scared to talk to people so they just hide in the safe coding world.
 
Well, Solar, we have to do everything unfortunately, and this particular corner is being neglected and we unfortunately need talent to come and make a proposal to do this work. That's how it's supposed to work, through contractors doing what the network wants. I think the network, if given the arguments will want to build real, direct merchant solutions, to go along side whatever else is being developed. The hard part is finding the talent and willing people outside the core team - who have their own projects. You have to remember, most people come in with their great ideas, and energy to do particular things, and we need to put out the sign that says "merchant POS solutions developer wanted" which is what I'm trying to do here. Unfortunately, I'm just hanging out the sign, that developer will have to put out the proposal (though I'm willing to help with the cost of that, if they're fer real) and slog through the proposal system. But if you can't slog through it, and get yourself hired, then 1. you have to keep trying to sell your point, or 2. maybe you don't have it in ya (the proposer) Can't get discouraged, and I'm here to say I'll back anyone who is willing to take this on, and can do it (sell him/herself).
 
Do any merchants realistically want to accept and hold a volatile crypto as payment for their goods or services?

That sounds like a really bad business decision.

Merchants want the currency of their respective country. They pay tax, labour, and suppliers in that currency.

In my view, Dash offers merchants a new way to transact FIAT at lower costs than some traditional credit card suppliers. Thats the real prize on offer: The Payments industry.
 
Halso, merchants just want fiat. We shouldn't be requiring them to take Dash. In the future, sure Dash may be preferred. But at this stage, just make the payment look like a credit card but with less fees. Otherwise, what are we trying to do. You can't just say pay more and try this new thing.
 
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TanteStefana said:
Well, Solar, we have to do everything unfortunately, and this particular corner is being neglected and we unfortunately need talent to come and make a proposal to do this work. That's how it's supposed to work, through contractors doing what the network wants. I think the network, if given the arguments will want to build real, direct merchant solutions, to go along side whatever else is being developed. The hard part is finding the talent and willing people outside the core team - who have their own projects. You have to remember, most people come in with their great ideas, and energy to do particular things, and we need to put out the sign that says "merchant POS solutions developer wanted" which is what I'm trying to do here. Unfortunately, I'm just hanging out the sign, that developer will have to put out the proposal (though I'm willing to help with the cost of that, if they're fer real) and slog through the proposal system. But if you can't slog through it, and get yourself hired, then 1. you have to keep trying to sell your point, or 2. maybe you don't have it in ya (the proposer) Can't get discouraged, and I'm here to say I'll back anyone who is willing to take this on, and can do it (sell him/herself).
Click to expand...

I actually have an idea and it is 50% completed to do just what you are asking. At this point I am reluctant to spend much time on it with the mistakes Dash has made in the last few weeks pumping coinfirm, lawyers, and debit cards.
 
Solarminer said:
The thing users want is mobile wallets to spend crypto and merchants need to accept and instantly convert to fiat. You nailed it - debit cards are not a solution. ATMs are also not a solution. Almost like everyone is scared to talk to people so they just hide in the safe coding world.
Click to expand...

i agree with you on the mobile wallets part but not the atm part.

atm's are not the total solution but a good part of it. they are a solution now for people in fiat and there is money to be made, on atms to fiat and to crypto. they are also potentially part of a future dash DAO that will capture those atm fee's and pay them to the masternode network, all the while spreading dash across the world.
 
mastermined said:
atm's are not the total solution but a good part of it. they are a solution now for people in fiat and there is money to be made, on atms to fiat and to crypto. they are also potentially part of a future dash DAO that will capture those atm fee's and pay them to the masternode network, all the while spreading dash across the world.
Click to expand...

Just to put this in perspective. The likelihood of a DAO paying masternodes from ATM fees is about zero. You first need an ATM network of at least one Dash buying machine, and we still don't have that.
 
I have mixed feelings about this. I think, and my mind changes on this back and forth... Dash needs to be innovative FIRST. It needs to get traction with the enthusiasts and the "Blockchain" folks first. I just spent two whole days at a conference that had a Blockchain Tech track where everyone kept talking about "Bitcoin and Ethereum" (and sometimes Litecoin and ZCash) over and over again. Never Dash. Perry (Node40) spoke on day two and that was the first many of these people ever heard of Dash more than just in passing.

Dash has a ways to go. Get traction in the community and as "blockchain" starts to mainstream, when merchants start looking for a fiat-less solution... Dash will have weight and prominence and be less of an outlier.

Oh... and Wallets. Dash Wallet (android only) and the QT Desktop wallet are the only two that leverage InstantSend, I believe. 2.5 minutes for one confirmation is still too long. Mycellium, Jaxx, Coinomi. We have to help those folks implement InstantSend.

UPDATE TO COMMENT: Things like Shake (or ShakePay) which make it easier to work within the existing Fiat system certainly is a good starting point from the consumers perspective with merchants being none-the-wiser. I have used it and it is... refreshing to be able to spend Dash largely wherever I want so easily.
 
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Damn it, Bitcointalk won't work for me, it's always hanging up. This is to @tungfa in reply to his comment:

[quote author=tungfa link=topic=421615.msg16725829#msg16725829 date=1477795919]
ShakePay Launches Dash Debit Card: Q&A w/ Founder Jean Amiouny


J9LuNzT.png

[/quote]

Yah, that's 3 levels of middle men. Shakepay, Their exchange to BTC, then something like Coinbase to bank. Why should we accept this? That's probably 3% minimum you have to pay to accept Dash! Where is the savings. Savings enough to even bother with all this shit? We need to bring this down to one exchange that will take Dash, turn it into Fiat and deposit it into your bank. Get rid of all the middle men. And we need to do it ASAP or we will not survive.

We need to provide a nice carrot to entice a group ripe for need, and I say it's the small merchant, the ones that set up shop at conventions, flea markets and etsy that we should be going after first (hell, that's EXACTLY the people Paypal started out with, and have now been raping!) All these middle men aren't needed. What we need is a Dash to fiat exchange that accepts IX, can convert to fiat immediately and send it off automatically to their bank account. One step, not 3/4 steps. And make it so they can CHOOSE which exchange they want to use.

I'm not saying don't allow other companies come up with services, but I am saying we have to be competitive against all other coins, or we will lose our lead. And we do need to stop playing favorites in my opinion. We are creating monopolies which will bite us in the ass in the future, and kill the whole reason why cryptos exist in the first place. I can see these 3rd party solutions being useful for big industry some day, but the little guy, the lowest merchant is the one who is going to make or break crypto, I promise you.
 
And if we could even provide a service like sales history that can be downloaded to spreadsheet that even shows original price in fiat vs what was deposited in bank, to show how much actually lands in their account, even better! A minimalist accounting system is more than they've ever had, these people just wing it, and don't even know if they're making money 90% of the time.
 
On a higher level, I think Odoo is a step in the right direction. I'm not asking Core to do this work, they have their plates full, I'm asking someone else to step up to the plate, write a proposal, and I'll campaign for you! I feel strongly this is something we need to do now (or last year already) to stay ahead of the pack!!!

Core doesn't have to do everything, but it would be nice if they didn't actively discourage what many think needs to be done. That's supposed to be the ultimate goal of the Dash DAO so we don't have to rely on one or two service providers (and pay for their upstarts). I understand the advantages of partnering up with some people, but we shouldn't take all the financial risk for them either.

At it's worst, I see helping hand picked companies as the beginning of a new monopolistic infrastructure, which is the very thing crypto hoped to avoid. Just saying. We're still early on in this, but whatever we pay for should be open sourced for any other startup to use.

In the mean time, we're missing out on an opportunity to help people NOW who really need a solution.
 
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hey tante
on fire there :rolleyes:

not sure why u tagged me but gives me a reason to respond
same old chicken and egg situation i believe - more merchants or better tech - better tech or more merchants - ....
there was a proposal for Odoo integration which did not get voted in i blieve , 1 community guy is still working on the 100 merchants in 100 days (and it seems to be that he is struggling a bit) ....

centralised companies vs building our own apps
i know there are different opinions on this , as i get negative comments every time i mention blockpay .... thing is , approaching new merchants is not as simple as it seems and doing that with a self made app than a big service (blockpay) is in my opinion definately the harder way . as a merchant who has no clue about crypto why would u adopt some little app which is dealing with one (out of 100s) of currencies ? sure if u are a maximalist for dash , no worries , but we are talking about the general mainstream here .... so it would be much easier to get out there with such a service and build up a community and following over that + get more recognitian in the space - as dash is still the fastest, and if you (merchant) look into the details u will understand .
building our own payment system for mum and pup shops (as it was done before) is just way too complicate for the normal n00b who wants to adopt that currency but definately does not want to deal with any tech stuff. i do not believe we can beat the big companies with their slick integration, apps and HW. and then , why should we (sure to make it cheaper and branded and ....) , we are in the process of building a currency - that is already 100% complex - to start working now on our own payment hardware , launching that in a slick mainstream competitive way , + being able to supply (if needed) that to thousands of future merchants .... think about the logistics ....
this (for now) is not a care team job i believe , if the community wants to get onto developing this ok , but i still believe these 3rd party 'centralised ' companies (as u call them) are 100% needed - remember nobody knows about us out there , so to come with your own handmade device (and tell merchants how to deal with a Raspberry Pie) and try to convince a merchant not only to use "new" money but also a self made machine .... think about it
sure as said before this will be much easier in Evo , sure we know this is still ages out there ..... chicken and egg ;)

Edit
the flea markets peeps should just use the mobile wallet as payments, but then (again) wouldn't you accept all crypto , or your favourite once - if that flea market dude is accepting only dash on his stand he will be pretty frustrated soon, so same same , i would suggest using Jaxx or whatever multi currency wallet so your changes of a crypto payment are much higher than waiting for that 1 Dash guy to come by at some point.
+
this has to grow organically , i believe there is only so much we or the core can do about it, nothing is more powerful than a positive charged community with the right tools in hand (tools = 3rd party apps we have now)
 
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I only tagged you because I was responding to the BCT post which is down. I can't post anything there lately! Not meaning to be agressive, just antsy. So busy too, with today being Halloween. Just spent 2 hours doing my kid's makeup, Ugh! All 3 kids pulling in 3 directions too!

So, anyway, I am passionate about getting a solution out there for the smallest merchants. I used to sell on ebay years ago and finally stopped because of the insane charges. 15% flat for using ebay (10%) and paypal (5%) and they have a corner on the market. If you don't accept paypal, nobody will bid/buy. And the 10% ebay charges is just insane.

But in the beginning it was far better! And I KNOW this is a great market inroad for us!
 
I agree spending more on a logo when we already have one but then call it for marketing? We need a overhaul on our voting system. We should have a pay for delivery some of these votes are getting approved and I have no clue on how it impacted the economy just people getting paid on ideas and no followups etc...
 
@freshdopamine, we only have the proposals that people submit. We have money to pay for things people are willing to do, but nobody has stepped forward to do something like this. So I'm just trying to draw someone in who might be thinking about something to this end and I'm hoping they'll come in an talk about their ideas, see if we can't get backing for this in the network??

But where oh where are you??
 
I was thinking about this the other day
If I were a merchant I would still want to accept traditional payments. Cash credit/debit but also dash.
Because of this a single cash register that can handle all the payments would be ideal. Or most but separate terminal for debit/credit like in some smaller businesses.
Keeping payment equipment to a min.

Now when it comes to payment from a consumer stand point I can see 2 options
1 phone payment, already options but possibly a universal one for android, iPhone and others. not everyone has a smart phone or the battery dies when you need it.
2. A chip+pin card Canada has been using it for years and while not 100 effective it has helped. With technology like what the kindle uses to read print the card can say how much dash is available and when inserted into the machine it updates to include any deposits/withdraws.

I was also thinking about gift cards
I don't know how one would do this with private keys, funding the card once purchased. Would probably have to be a 3rd party to do the work.
with this instantx is the way to go but the Fees are paid upfront, so if grandma purchases this card for there grandchildren the grand children won't get dinged the extra fees for processing and instantx. 5 dash is really 5 dash and not 4.5 dash once all is said and done.
 
Sorry, Tante, looks like the Dash PR machine is working against you on this.
Govts Could Target Businesses That Seek to Integrate Anonymous Currencies
https://cointelegraph.com/news/dash...s-that-seek-to-integrate-anonymous-currencies

Seriously, I can't understand why this title was used. Is Babyg intentionally trying to drop the price of Dash so he can buy more nodes? Is he trying to make it look like the mixing part of Dash should be taken out?

The shakepay card is only available in Canada and Mexico. In Canada it would be far better to use one of their bitcoin bill pay services to pay your credit card that you use to pay your bills with a 1 or 2% back rewards. The advantage to this card(or really any debit crypto card) is pretty minimal, but yet a press release comes out every week about it. Focus should be on directly transacting in crypto.

Intertan, I think you have an idea with using keys on a card. You could have a card with a private key on it, but then you would need to return unused funds back to the card on first use. And if you just gave out a private key - the merchant now has it. There maybe a way to do that with rewriting the magnetic strip. Still anything that you do will require trust from the merchant. Not really an good solution.

Jaxx has a card like this. You buy the card with fiat, then you activate it and it converts to crypto. That makes the buying process easy. But not so easy to do in reverse.
 
Solarminer said:
Sorry, Tante, looks like the Dash PR machine is working against you on this.
Govts Could Target Businesses That Seek to Integrate Anonymous Currencies
https://cointelegraph.com/news/dash...s-that-seek-to-integrate-anonymous-currencies

Seriously, I can't understand why this title was used. Is Babyg intentionally trying to drop the price of Dash so he can buy more nodes? Is he trying to make it look like the mixing part of Dash should be taken out?

The shakepay card is only available in Canada and Mexico. In Canada it would be far better to use one of their bitcoin bill pay services to pay your credit card that you use to pay your bills with a 1 or 2% back rewards. The advantage to this card(or really any debit crypto card) is pretty minimal, but yet a press release comes out every week about it. Focus should be on directly transacting in crypto.

Intertan, I think you have an idea with using keys on a card. You could have a card with a private key on it, but then you would need to return unused funds back to the card on first use. And if you just gave out a private key - the merchant now has it. There maybe a way to do that with rewriting the magnetic strip. Still anything that you do will require trust from the merchant. Not really an good solution.

Jaxx has a card like this. You buy the card with fiat, then you activate it and it converts to crypto. That makes the buying process easy. But not so easy to do in reverse.
Click to expand...

@babygiraffe didn't pick the title, the editor did. It's called "clickbait."
 
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