This week Square Market announced that from now on buyers can purchase goods and services with Bitcoin.
The official announcement was published on Monday 1 April, but Square Market developers assure that this isn’t an April Fool’s joke.
New online retailer
Square Market is one of the newest e-retailers – it was launched in 2013, and provides the ability for anyone to open up an online store for free. To do so, a store business profile must be filled and completed with photos of the items. However, sellers have to pay 2.75 percent fee on each sale.
It is worth mentioning that this online storefront includes goods and services from merchants all around the world.
“Sellers should never miss a sale. We’re building tools so sellers can accept any form of payment their customers want to use. Making commerce easy means creating easy ways to exchange value for everything from a massage to a DODO case for your iPad” said Ajit Varma, Square Market Lead on Square Engineering Blog page.
Accepting Bitcoin
Now sellers will be able to create their own online storefront and allow their customers to use Bitcoin payment option.
“Whether the buyer is new to paying with Bitcoin or not, it should feel like a VIP experience. We focused on making the experience smooth and simple,” said Varma.
How it works
Step 1 – “Pay with Bitcoin”
If a customer chooses to use Bitcoin as a payment, the Square Market system will generate a new Bitcoin address and attach it to the order.
Step 2 – Submitting payment
Buyers with a mobile Bitcoin wallet simply open their wallet and scan the QR code to load the transaction details. Those with a hosted Bitcoin wallet receive instructions for entering the required information.
Once the payment details are loaded into the buyer’s wallet, they submit their payment to the network.
Step 3 – Receiving payment
The whole checkout process will be continually monitored up to the moment when the address receives payment. Once the payment is received the system allows customer to enter the order confirmation page.
Moreover, developers assure that “the seller takes no risk on Bitcoin value fluctuations”. Bitcoins will be automatically converted into USD and the seller receives the exact amount of money for sold goods or services advertised to the sellers' customer at the point of transaction.