Accepting Bitcoin Payments

 

In the interests of helping encourage more merchants to accept Bitcoin I thought I would write a tutorial to share my experience and success as an online merchant accepting Bitcoins.

NinjaStik.com is based on WordPress and the store is powered by WooCommerce so this tutorial will work with that foundation.

You will need:

  • Working WordPress installation
  • Working WooCommerce installation
  • A Bitcoin address

WordPress, WooCommerce and the Bitcoin plugin used in this tutorial are all free.  I highly recommend making a donation to the plugin author as they have been incredibly responsive and very helpful with any questions.

  • Getting a Bitcoin address - I use a local exchange account to accept my Bitcoin deposits, then move them to my secure wallet.  The online account provides a Bitcoin address to make deposits into.  The Electrum Bitcoin client also provides a very secure, easy to use address.

In WordPress, click on Plugins, Add New, search for ‘Bitcoin Payments for WooCommerce‘ then click install.

Once you have the plugin installed, setup is very simple.

1) In the WordPress tool panel you will see a new entry ‘Bitcoin’.  Click on this and you are presented with the following options:

Bitcoin Payments for WooCommerce

Bitcoin Payments for WooCommerce

I have enabled ‘soft (wordpress) cron job’ Which will automatically update your order status when the Bitcoin payment has been received.

2) From the WordPress tool panel, Click on WooCommerce, Settings, Payment Gateways, Bitcoin

On this panel are your settings to accept Bitcoin payments - click the image to expand.

Bitcoin Payments for WooCommerce

Bitcoin Payments for WooCommerce

  • Check ‘Enable Bitcoin Payments’
  • Title - I have left the default ‘Bitcoin Payments’
  • I am using the Blockchain.info API to confirm the transactions but the Electrum option is faster and even more secure.
  • Your personal Bitcoin address - this is the address provided by your account to accept deposits.
    • Do not try to type this in by hand - use copy and paste!
  • Number of confirmations required - the standard is 6 confirmations.
  • Exchange rate calculation - The default is the weighted average.
  • Exchange rate multiplier - If you want to give Bitcoin payees a discount you can do it here.
    • Example: The NinjaStik store offers a 20% discount for paying with Bitcoin as a way to promote the use of Bitcoin as a currency.  In the exchange multiplier field I have ‘.8′ which then automatically calculates the discount.
  • Customer Message - this field can provide any additional detail you like.
    • Example: the NinjaStik store uses this field to explain that the discount is automatically calculated and that the total in dollars on the receipt will not change.
  • Payment Instructions - the default instructions worked for me, but you can easily modify the message that is given to the cusotmer on how to submit their Bitcoin payment.
Save your settings and voila! you are now accepting Bitcoins as a merchant.
When a customer makes a purchase through Bitcoin, the order will arrive in WooCommerce and the Bitcoin plugin will mark it as ‘pending payment’.  In WooCommerce, open the order and scroll down, you will see a Bitcoin address.  This is the address given to the customer to deposit their payment, it will change with each new order.  Once the payment has been confirmed 6 times through blockchain.info the Bitcoin plugin will mark the order as ‘paid’.  You will also see the funds in your online account after it has confirmed 6 times (some online accounts may vary the number of confirmation, but 6 seems to be the standard).
If you would like to watch the payment being confirmed, you can simply go to www.blockchain.info and paste the payment address into the search box and you can see if the customer has made the payment and watch the confirmation count.
If you are selling a physical product, you can then ship the product.  If you are selling a downloadable product, WooCommerce will send the customer their link to download once the payment has been confirmed and marked as ‘paid’ in the system.
It really is that simple.  
Accepting Bitcoin can be further customized almost any way you wish - you can have the payments go directly to your Electrum wallet, you can use a Bitcoin to fiat system.
Last but not least, did you notice there was no mention of processing fees?  Accepting Bitcoin is free!  You can incur fees switching back and forth from fiat currency, but the best thing to do is accept Bitcoins and then use them for things that you need to buy.
There has been a great deal of attention to Bitcoin daytrading and ‘investing’ in Bitcoins.  Speculation is tough on any currency, especially an emerging one like Bitcoin.  The best way to help support Bitcoin and foster solid growth is to accept and use Bitcoin as a currency - what it was meant for in the first place.
If you are a merchant looking to accept Bitcoin, feel free to email me admin@ninjastik.com and ask any questions.  As noted here on the site I am more than happy to assist with anyone who wants to learn about open source software and that also applies to anyone wanting to accept Bitcoin payments.

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One Response to “Accepting Bitcoin Payments”

  1. School Of Privacy May 2, 2013 at 2:16 am #

    its great that you accept bitcoins, ill be sure to add you guys to my directory of sites and buisnesses who accept bitcoin

    Reply

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