Bitcoin Money

New Bitcoin Support With E-Commerce Shopping Cart Platforms

Bitcoin-related e-Commerce just got easier.

WalletBit has released payment modules that support Magento, osCommerce, ZenCart, and WordPress e-Commerce shopping cart platforms.  This is in addition to WalletBit’s existing support for PrestaShop, Opencart, WHMCS and VirtueMart eCommerce systems and a custom API method that provides either a simple API button or enables support for building a customized solution.

These offerings use WalletBit’s back-end payment processing which takes care of the heavy lifting associated with transacting through the Bitcoin network.

Payment processor BitPay also has support for multiple ECommerce cart systems including WordPress e-Commerce, Magento, OpenCart, Zen Cart and WHMCS as well as “Buy now” buttons and API support.

Additionally, BitPay just began building support for the (free) ECWID e-Commerce system and is crowdfunding the development for Bitcoin support with the 3DCart and Shopify E-Commerce platforms.

Mt. Gox provides a merchant payments service and also processes payments for merchants either through an API or through their payment module for the Magento platform.

Other payment processing platforms include Paysius, which also has plugins for Magento, Zen Cart, Open Cart and OS Commerce but for Uber Cart as well.

Merchants who are willing to run a Bitcoin client node themselves can use shopping cart software that accesses the Bitcoin client locally rather than relying on a third party payment processor.  For instance, CoinDL is built using a module for the OSCommerce e-Commerce platform and uses no third party payment processor.

Even if the merchant wishes to use a standalone solution, the bitcoin proceeds of each sale can still be exchanged into another currency using exchange APIs, such as what Mt. Gox and Paymium (operator of Bitcoin-Central) offer.

Individuals and hobby-level merchants are finding that hosted e-Commerce services suffice, with many finding the online auction and fixed-price selling service from BitMit serves well for selling goods and services in exchange for bitcoins.

Bitcoin is the only payment method which approximates a cash payment made online.  For instance a purchase of music on CoinDL does not require that the buyer establish an account on that service.  Because bitcoin payment transactions cannot be reversed, the download can begin seconds after payment is sent by the buyer — without CoinDL knowing who the customer even was.

With this broadened support for a wider variety of e-Commerce platforms, combined with service from a payment processor that can both lessen the exchange rate risk and also maintain secure payment systems means that a merchant considering accepting bitcoins for payment has fewer hurdles than ever.

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