You probably don’t give the online purchasing process much thought. You click buy… sign up to yet another random company that will probably spam you forever and give them all your personal information.

It’s a long and annoying dance that as Internet users, we’ve kind of just come to accept, but since Bitcoin was launched it’s no longer the only option. There’s dozens of reasons that both customers and retailers should be using Bitcoin for online purchases, but today we’re going to look at the top 5.

1. Privacy & Security

The number one benefit of using Bitcoin for online purchases is increased privacy and security. When it comes to paying for something online, before Bitcoin’s invention you had to use something like a credit card or PayPal which is tied both to your bank account and your real world identity.

Privacy is recognized as a fundamental human right by a number of international bodies like the United Nations. Privacy is also not secrecy. We all like to keep some things private which is why we have blinds on our house or close the door when we go to the bathroom.

You’re not trying to hide an illegal secret, you just want some alone time and you have a right to that privacy. This right is extremely basic and extends to your finances as well. We all agree that a random stranger shouldn’t get to know all the things you spend your money on. But with the current fiat banking world, they do. This is where, when used properly, Bitcoin can help.

While Bitcoin can be linked to your identity if used improperly, it’s getting easier every day to use it privately and securely by default. Athena Alpha has some great guides to help you learn how Bitcoin works and the various tools that are available keep improving year after year.

One of the best new tools is the new Lightning Network which enables quick, simple and secure purchases to be made online without the transaction ever getting stored on the permanent Bitcoin Blockchain.

For customers, buying something with bitcoin over the Lightning Network is a breath of fresh air. No more credit card checks, security sweeps, expiry dates you need to enter or anything else. Just scan the QR code and click Pay Invoice. Simple.

2. No Charge Backs

On the flip side, looking at the world of online purchases from the retailers point of view Bitcoin is a game changer in multiple ways too. One such way is no charge backs.

Charge backs are what happens when a customer undoes their purchase. This can be for many legitimate reasons, but it can also be for many dodgy ones too. A Bitcoin transaction on the other hand is what’s called a cash bearer instrument and is final.

It’s as if you literally handed them a $100 bill in person and they then disappeared. There is no way to undo it and while some may see this as a “risk”, it’s nothing new as that’s how cash payments have worked for thousands of years now.

3. Speed

While charge backs can cause issues with retailers sometimes they also have another serious knock on effect. As payment gateways or platforms must take charge backs into account, they often put delays on the pay outs for various purchases.

If you buy an online course for example, the person or company that made that course won’t get those funds for months. Even regular purchases for things like an item of clothing online more often than not take days or even weeks to reach the retailers actual bank account and be “settled”.

Bitcoin settles on average every 10 minutes. Over the Layer 2 Lightning Network settlement is instant. No more waiting for the payment to “clear”. It’s just there, in your wallet instantly. A perfect analogy is sending snail mail vs sending email. One takes days/weeks/months, the other is instant. Once retailers realize this, have a guess which one they’ll prefer!

4. Low Fees

Bitcoin (and especially the Lightning Network which has near zero fees) typically has much lower transaction fees than other networks like Visa or Master Card. These companies usually take anywhere from 0.5-3% of the transaction.

This can be a huge drain on companies, especially for those with very slim margins. While 1% might not sound like much, it might cost a company $95 to make the product which they sell for $100. If Visa takes a 1% ($1) fee, that’s 20% of their profits! ($1 / $5 = 20%).

It’s very likely that as Bitcoin and Lightning adoption starts to reach mainstream adoption, we’ll begin to see these fee savings passed onto customers. For example, you might see a product cost $100 if you pay via Visa / Master Card / PayPal… and $95 if you pay via the Lightning Network.

For the retailer, the lower fees, speedier funds delivery and zero chance of charge back could easily mean they’re willing to give you a bit of a discount. In this scenario customers win, retailers win and the only ones who lose are all the blood sucking credit card companies.

5. Seamless Integration

Our final top benefit for using Bitcoin for online purchases is its ease of integration and friction free use. Right now, if you want to charge money for anything online there’s a whole rabbit hole you have to go down that involves payment gateways, ID verification, APIs, coding, signing up to different platforms, paying fees and more. It’s a nightmare and it’s expensive.

And. Once you get through that nightmare you can’t really do much with it either. You can’t charge for things under $5-$10 as the payment gateway fees are too high and it’s very difficult to integrate automatic payments into selling things like a regular newsletter.

This difficulty is the entire reason why huge companies like Shopify or WooCommerce exist. They’re great… but they also cost money and 100% aren’t needed if you use Bitcoin. With Bitcoin, you ARE the bank and payment gateway!

There are completely free and open source implementations that seamlessly integrate with every piece of content from blogs to videos. You can take donations, charge $0.01 for the viewing of a single post or video, charge $0.10 every minute that a user listens to your podcast, run your own fund raisers and more all on free software and completely under your control.

6. Conclusion

The benefits that we’re seeing Bitcoin enable are frankly amazing. The more mind boggling thing is that it’s only just the beginning. Bitcoin is currently where the Internet was in 1997. There are around 100+ million people worldwide that own it and most people don’t even know what it is, let alone how to use it.

As Bitcoin scales and matures over the next decade it will go from its current “AOL / Netscape / MySpace / cringe” stage into its mainstream “Google / Microsoft / Facebook” stage. It will permeate every industry just like electricity and the Internet before it and to perform an online purchase without Bitcoin will seem bizarre and as silly as sending a snail mail letter is today.

If you’re a business you should absolutely be accepting Bitcoin as an alternative payment method. It’s simple to integrate and there are even third parties that make it possible to receive Bitcoin and have it instantly converted into fiat if you’d prefer not to keep it on your company books.

For customers, we need to start demanding that businesses “let us pay in bitcoin”. The privacy, security and better integration is a clear step above everything else out there. If you are sick of companies like Facebook or governments sucking up endless amounts of your personal and private data then this is how you opt out.

Demand businesses let you pay in bitcoin and experience a future where your every financial transaction is locked behind an impenetrable wall of cyber hornets and encryption. Private. Secure. Lightning Fast. Cheap. Seamless. That’s Bitcoin.