Paying merchants to accept Dash

[Pietro Speroni]

I keep seeing all sorts of crazy proposals about Dash, but I miss the most obvious and simple one: pay x dollars in dash to each merchant that for 1 year accepts dash in their shop. And I am speaking here about real world shops, restaurants, places on the high street, taxi and so on. To obtain the money the shop keeper needs to advertise it on their window; download the app and learn how to use it. And then some of us can go and check if they really accept dash by going there and asking to pay with dash.

I think if we start paying 100$ per shop it is not enough to be a problem for the dash community (we have too much money, not too less) while providing a good incentive. I know several shop that would absolutely accept the money and start doing it.

I know some people say that we should wait for the Evolution system, but I am afraid that we lose time. It will be easier after to upgrade merchants from one system to the other.

 

[Leonidas]

@Pietro Speroni , definitely would like to see that.

Some months ago I proposed the same thing saying that we could use leftover from the budget to fund (as we always have some - not to say a lot) such scheme on the long run. I was surprised to see many people disagreeing with it. But it was only on this forum, so it's no relevant of all the network way of thinking. Maybe things have changed since then, let see !

 

[UdjinM6]

I think this is quite reasonable. I'm not sure about the exact cost, someone should do the math (operational cost, teaching personal, cover discount for paying in Dash etc) and make a pre-proposal - that would be interesting to see.

PS. That's one of these proposals that require some DAO around them, no way to manage every single shop via Treasury

 

[Dashmaximalist]

I keep seeing all sorts of crazy proposals about Dash, but I miss the most obvious and simple one: pay x dollars in dash to each merchant that for 1 year accepts dash in their shop. And I am speaking here about real world shops, restaurants, places on the high street, taxi and so on. To obtain the money the shop keeper needs to advertise it on their window; download the app and learn how to use it. And then some of us can go and check if they really accept dash by going there and asking to pay with dash.

I think if we start paying 100$ per shop it is not enough to be a problem for the dash community (we have too much money, not too less) while providing a good incentive. I know several shop that would absolutely accept the money and start doing it.

I know some people say that we should wait for the Evolution system, but I am afraid that we lose time. It will be easier after to upgrade merchants from one system to the other.

hi @Pietro Speroni as much as i like your determination to make dash go viral , here's the real problem. Paying businesses to show pay with dash icon doesn't solve the real big problem we have. The 'USERS'

Unless we have convinced users to open a wallet and get some dash , have even 90% merchants accepting dash is useless , business exist to serve customers ,if customers are ready to pay in dash , businesses will gladly accept dash. so we should spend all our money and effort in bringing as many customers to start using dash , businesses will follow very soon.

Check my sms otp based marketing effort, if you have some similar ideas for getting users en masse, lets discuss

 

[Leonidas]

hi @Pietro Speroni as much as i like your determination to make dash go real viral , here's the real problem. Paying businesses to show pay with dash icon doesn't solve the real big problem we have. The 'USERS'

Unless we have convinced users to open a wallet and get some dash , have even 90% merchants accepting dash is useless , business exist to serve customers ,if customers are ready to pay in dash , businesses will gladly accept dash. so we should spend all our money and effort in bringing as many customers to start using dash , businesses will follow very soon.

Check my sms otp based marketing effort, if you want to something similar for getting users enmasse, lets discuss

It's chicken and egg problem so it's good that everybody is working on each end !

If you have 90 % merchants accepting dash, you will see how easy it is to convince people to buy and use it !

 

[Dashmaximalist]

It's chicken and egg problem so it's good that everybody is working on each end !

If you have 90 % merchants accepting dash, you will see how easy it is to convince people to buy and use it !

Fair enough , we should put 90% of our money on getting customers and 10% on getting merchants , not the other way around. Right now as you know , most proposals are focusing a lot on merchants and their integration and their software , instead of getting more customers

 

[Vedran Yoweri]

if you have to bribe people to use your product you're doing it wrong.

 

[Leonidas]

if you have to bribe people to use your product you're doing it wrong.

Not bribing.

Dash's product is good. But in order for its features to be beneficial to its users and merchants, it needs a big network. Without it, Dash's product is not good (nor is any other project's product). Why should we wait on the generosity of merchants to accept Dash ? That's not what we do, because we know that this is not a sustainable way of seeing things. People need to be incentivized to use Dash. When many businesses accept Dash, every business will be incentivized to accept it. But up to that point, they are not. A business owner know that he won't get one sale and even if he does, it will barely cover the cost it took to implement it. So why would he accept Dash ? Why would he bear the cost of implementing Dash right now when we don't give him anything back (no customer, no sale) ?

It's not about the product it's about the lack of network. That solution resolves the networking problem.

 

[Vedran Yoweri]

Not bribing.

the reason you do something doesn't define what you are doing.

how about creating a product that's so good people want it?
dash needs time to build it's products, don't go ducking around playing the unrealistic crypto idiot, it doesn't help dash.

 

[Leonidas]

the reason you do something doesn't define what you are doing.

agreed. Here, the "doing" is giving money. You are the one defining what that action is, not me.

Besides, "bribing" : money or favor given or promised in order to influence the judgment or conduct.

Here it is an exchange of services. It's a contract between two parties. Like advertisement if you will. "You put a log on your door, we give you money".

how about creating a product that's so good people want it?

That's what we do. And if I am not mistaken, that's what PayPal did which did not prevent them from giving 10 $ for subscribers.

don't go ducking around playing the unrealistic crypto idiot, it doesn't help dash

Thank you for that demonstration, you really convinced me here

 

[Pietro Speroni]

Fair enough , we should put 90% of our money on getting customers and 10% on getting merchants , not the other way around. Right now as you know , most proposals are focusing a lot on merchants and their integration and their software , instead of getting more customers

I am not seeing any work on merchant. Can you please point me on that?
Said that I don't particularly care if it is 90/10, 50/50, 10/90. As long as both sides are being activated. We had a very successful campaign that would pay 10 dollars for each person installing a dash wallet. That's great. We need the same thing for merchants. But a single merchant that displays the DASH symbol on a busy street and agreeing to accept dash is much more valuable than a random person installing the dash wallet. I have a dash wallet in my phone. It has exactly 0 dash inside, as it is a risk to keep it there with no reward, as I have never seen a shop that accepts dash (in Rome, or Italy, or London...), so why should I move Dash there? We need merchants to accept dash and say they do, before even people that have dash will start keeping some in their pocket money.

 

[Pietro Speroni]

I think this is quite reasonable. I'm not sure about the exact cost, someone should do the math (operational cost, teaching personal, cover discount for paying in Dash etc) and make a pre-proposal - that would be interesting to see.

PS. That's one of these proposals that require some DAO around them, no way to manage every single shop via Treasury

Agreed. Could the Dash core team give this work to someone they trust?

 

[Pietro Speroni]

if you have to bribe people to use your product you're doing it wrong.

When you start a network the first part is always the hardest. It's a bit like when you turn on a car with a combustion engine. The engine might be perfect, but you still need some external electricity to activate it. That's why you have an electrical engine to turn on the normal one. When I speak about Dash I find a lot of people being very interested. Merchants too. But no one will actually start using it. And why should they use it if no one in the public has dash. So we need to start to have enough merchants have dash. And have it in touristic places can be a really good strategy. You go to a Pizzeria in Rome and you use your Dash. No need to pay VISA any money for this dinner. This will be a great advertisement. There is a lot of advertisement which is just making people aware that a possibility exist. In other words we can make the perfect crypto from an engineering perspective. But unless you start to have both merchants AND people in their pocket, people will not use it on the street.

 

[JZA]

I had this discussion many times, the person I was having this wanted the project to pay for the hardware to the store, as well as some insurance for the negative volatility of the coin as long as they trade their DASH with 'us' and make it a business out of it.

I wonder how will this make sense. I can see some good points but also many hurdles. Approaching a small business with a 'free' $ 250 tablet with a DASH wallet and support for exchanging their dash for fiat. Might give a all-in-one solution for a business that might be overwealmed with crypto.

 

[younglegend]

We don't have to pay the merchant to accept dash. But educate merchant there's way to get paid

other than fiat. What we really need is liable fiat gateways. Just giving dash away alone won't increase its acceptance..

 

[JZA]

A fiat gateway wont be enough to hold things like negative volatility. Imagine you have a burger joint, which you need to restock daily. So you made 400 usd of sales in DASH, but DASH price drop by 20% and now you only have 320 usd, your stock is around 300 usd which means your margin was just evaporated for that day.

You might think is a 'small' risk, but to them is a no go. The margin game a tiny volatility might take all days profits.

 

[younglegend]

I was able to bargain a jewelery seller to accept less than half the market price.

they will do just fine with little volatility. And when is the last time dash had 20%drop???

 

[Ftoole]

I would say pay them nothing. If the we roomies accept and promote dash for 1 year. Give them a dash atm, pos system, and some swag. Signs and stickers to. I mean dash fees alone are a great savings but I think giving them all the tools is better then money.

 

[JZA]

Believe me they are not interested with the last time, they are more concern with the next time. Is very naive thinking DASH will never experience a crash.

 

[JZA]

Dash has to bribe people to do everything for it, in contrast to 100% volunteer grassroots coins like Bitcoin, Litecoin, Monero, and Decred.

Dash even has to bribe people to attend its MeetUps. Sad! People fly across time zones to attend Monero meet-ups on their own dime, while Dashers resort to "FREE GIFT" time-share marketing gimmicks.

Bitcoin never bribed merchants to accept it. Satoshi never had to convince or 'incentivize' merchants to accept Bitcoin.

Dash's TryHard approach reeks of insecurity and high time preferences. As if trying to force merchant adoption will make it happen instead of backfiring because of the ugly optics and history associated with foisting yet another half-baked retail payment rail on long-suffering businesses.

That's why nobody use those coins or have to wait a decade to be aware of them. How many people know Bitcoin, how many people know Android. They are the same age, but wait, Google had to pay Motorola and Samsung to use Android as opposed to their old legacy OS like Tizen or WebOS. But who cares, Android has 86.5% of the mobile market share, so who cares.