Bitcoins as a means of payment

Bitcoins have great potential as a means of payment. BY THOMAS LANG*In addition to logistics, the payment process is one of the core fulfillment processes in the mail order business. What both have in common is that they often still function today with the thinking of earlier years. In the logistics area, the potential for innovation is currently very high, especially from players who are actually remote from the industry. The fact is that the means of payment in widespread use today were not designed for long-distance business or involve credit risks. Credit cards, for example, were originally developed for face-to-face business and actually require the presence of the plastic card. In e-commerce, technical crutches are used to increase the perceived security. On the other hand, large platforms are experimenting again and again with proprietary means of payment, some of them more successful so far, others less so.The need for a new type of means of payment for the digital society is fundamentally justified and especially where trade is conducted, the need is particularly great. Two weeks ago, Overstock was the first major U.S. retailer to accept Bitcoin and hailed the USD 130,000 worth of Bitcoin sales on the first day as a success. Already, it has been speculated that Amazon will not be able to avoid accepting Bitcoins. We will see.Even in Switzerland, there are isolated (stationary) retailers who are experimenting with Bitcoins and accept them. If you want to take a look around the world, we recommend the Coinmap.e-commerce is not really beyond experimental status yet, but innovation thrives on this, among other things. If you want to take a closer look at the subject in the context of e-commerce, we recommend the inside ecommerce talk with Adrian Hotz:

-------------------------------------------------------------------* Thomas Lang is managing director and owner of the Carpathia Consulting Ltd., the independent and neutral management consultancy for e-business and e-commerce. Author of numerous professional articles and studies, lecturer for online sales channels and speaker at conferences on the subject of e-commerce.