Switzerland
Digitec Galaxus, the largest eCommerce store of Switzerland announced yesterday that it had started accepting cryptocurrency payments at two of its websites (Digitec and Galaxus).
According to the Swiss company, they will be receiving payments in BTC, ETH, BCH, BSV, XRP, BNB, LTC, TRX, OMG, and NEO for all of their products (about 2.7 million). The eCommerce store stated that the minimum order amount for crypto payments is 200 CHF with no maximum amount.
Switzerland seems to be a crypto friendly country, and this announcement comes not long after the Swiss based Swissquote Bank becomes the first financial institution to offer ICOs on its platform.
“Cryptocurrencies are fascinating and could become a relevant means of payment in e-commerce – we would like to support this development. We wanted to do that for a long time, but the effort was too long for a long time,” Digitec Co-founder Oliver Herren said.
According to the Swiss media outlet Watson, Digitec Galaxus is embracing crypto payments to attract younger, tech-savvy customers as well as to present themselves as a progressive eCommerce store to the public.
“Because you have some and you want to use them. Or because you cannot turn them into real money because your bank does not accept the money. Just because you can do it, or because you like to try new things,” Herren stated in response to the benefits of paying via crypto at Digitec Galaxus.
As the company is using the third-party payment processor Coinify, when a customer purchases something from Digitec Galaxus via crypto, the coins are immediately converted to CHF with a fixed exchange rate of 15 minutes.
Therefore, cryptocurrency payments do not come with the risk of being volatile that often discourages organizations to offer coins as a payment method.
The process of buying a product from the Digitec Galaxus store is simple. The customer has to add a product in his cart, go to checkout and select cryptocurrencies as the payment method. He then will be redirected to Coinify’s website where the customer can select his preferred coin for the payment. Then, he gets a conversion rate that is valid for 15 minutes along with the payment details in a text and a QR code. He has to use the details as mentioned above for the transaction. After a successful payment, Coinify will confirm the payment within a few minutes, and Digitec Galaxus will process the order of the customer.
Digitec Galaxus does not charge any fees for cryptocurrency payments in any of its eCommerce stores. The only fees customers have to pay is 1.5% for Coinify’s conversions.