International eCommerce with Bitcoin – The Growing Force
Bitcoin’s promise to ensure international low cost transactions has seen a slew of usage across various verticals; but none as dominant as e-commerce. From pen drives and drones, to state of the art Bitcoin miners, CoinsForTech has been quietly carving a name for itself as a champion e-commerce service provider. I happened to catch up with Lee Marburg, the CEO and founder of CoinsForTech, an Australian e-commerce store that focuses on the sale of electronic goods for Bitcoin.
CoinsForTech was recently mentioned in a comprehensive post on Reddit, where Lee had penned their success story. In just 9 short months, the team has got over $ $300,000 USD in sales and are keen to build on their excellence by providing all customers with one of the healthiest customer support programs in the current Bitcoin eco-system.
One of the larger problems being faced by the e-tailers today is the sharp volatility in prices as Lee rightfully mentioned: “The exchange rate is the most damaging part of Bitcoin to our business. This is understandable though as customers are reluctant to purchase if they could buy the product for less tomorrow or the next day. The exchange rate can be very volatile and it does have an effect on peoples spending. Some of our customers have combated this by replacing the Bitcoin as they spend it (making the exchange rate irrelevant) but this is a very small minority.”
Despite the volatility, Lee is confident that Bitcoin will survive the long run and he said: “We are most popular in countries with generally high electronics prices. I also think that these countries will benefit most from Bitcoin and I sincerely hope it opens doors for them to afford-ably trade internationally.”
With just two suppliers accepting Bitcoin in payments, Lee is working hard towards an evangelism effort to get more suppliers to accept Bitcoin and this has been at the background of most of the work he does. “The month of March 2014 has been the best ever for CoinsForTech since its launch with total sales of about $100,000 USD! And this has been achieved within 9 months of our launch…” says the proud owner – Lee Marburg, though it’s much lower than what the infrastructure can handle. Products such as Galaxy S4 and new HTC One are now made available on the site.
CoinsForTech was launched primarily to prove how useful Bitcoin is for international trade. The company definitely wants to be more vocal in the Bitcoin movement and push for its uses in the payment system. They have repeat businesses from customers across Europe, Australia and the Middle East and one customer from Africa. CoinsForTech has been able to cater to countries with difficult markets and though they do not play a huge role in daily orders, customers are incredibly happy. They now service 42 countries in total since their launch June 2013.
Their customer support is provided by CoinSecure who takes care of their customers while they are asleep (time zones!) “One of the issues we battled as the store grew was that much of our customer activity happened while we were asleep. That problem ceased when CoinSecure reached out to us. Not only have they provided an excellent support service and taken care of our customers; they are full of ideas to further our business and have gone over and above with their work for us. I was pretty much sold when I saw CoinSecure accepted Bitcoin and realized they could solve our time zone problems. I am much more than satisfied with the service. If you need live support and are pro-bitcoin it is a no-brainer!”
Their main focus in the near future will be to reduce prices of their products (They currently have excellent prices on many of their products but want prices to continue to come down) to pass on the savings to customers, as it lowers merchant risks and definitely reduces cost. They are working to provide excellent shipping options as the economy grows and increase their customer base.