Coinbase Makes Bitcoin More Attractive to Merchants
Prominent bitcoin exchange and platform Coinbase has revealed new features that it says will make it “even easier for merchants to accept bitcoin.”
Digital currency exchange and bitcoin services provider Coinbase has rolled out a handful of new features that it hopes will help further bitcoin acceptance among merchants.
The new features, while simplistic in their nature provide practicality and merchant-friendly additions that inevitably helps raise the profile of bitcoin payments when compared to traditional fiat payments that are made electronically or otherwise. In fact, some of the features add a further polish the benefits that bitcoin and digital currencies offer, in comparison to their fiat counterparts.
The new feature of Partial Refunds, in particular, is a standout. Merchants can now refund a small part of a bigger transaction, such as refunding the fee for one canceled item out of an order that consists of several items. Legacy e-commerce portals that take payments via payment cards routinely cancel entire orders while requesting customers to place a newly revised order again. Micro-transactions and the lack of a roll-back charge come easilyy with digital currencies and this feature, in particular, will make bitcoin payments appealing to merchants.
Coinbase also revealed a fix for overpayments as its most requested feature from merchants. The bitcoin company has revamped its legacy system to make it easier for customers and merchants in the event of an order wherein customers accidentally overpay for an item.
A blog by Coinbase explains:
In our legacy system, we frequently saw customers accidentally overpaying for their order, whether due to transaction “miner” fees being unnecessarily added, or due to errant keystrokes.
Now, when the BTC amount exceeds the listed price, the Order is automatically completed but flagged as overpaid. This way, the customer will successfully receive their items without merchant intervention.
Customers will be able to see an overpaid transaction immediately.
Merchants will also have the means to refund the overpaid amount to customers with a new feature within their dashboards.
The platform is also enabling merchants with dials that help with creating a mispayment buffer, in the event of a mispayment. With the release of its v2 API, merchants will now have the means to create mispayment buffers, wherein percentages can be allocated to both ends of an item price.
Also read: Coinbase Releases ‘Buy Widget’ To Simplify Buying BTC
“For example, let’s consider an Order for 10 BTC with a 1 % underpayment buffer. A customer who accidentally pays 9.9 BTC will successfully complete the order, while someone who pays 9.8 BTC will not,” Coinbase explains. This control feature, it says, gives merchants additional control of their item listings.
Coinbase also revealed that it is switching to Insight , an open-source blockchain explorer that the company says will help with more reliable confirmations.
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