Dell is now accepting Bitcoins after Michael Dell announced in a tweet followed by a formal announcement by the firm that it’s accepting bitcoins.
“Now you can buy digital with digital – starting today, we’re accepting bitcoin on Dell.com. We’re piloting bitcoin, the world’s most widely used digital currency, as a purchase option on Dell.com for consumer and small business shoppers in the U.S. We’re excited to bring you the choice and flexibility this payment option offers and have partnered with Coinbase, a trusted and secure third party payment processor, to make this possible.”
The firm also said its offering a special Alienware promotion wherein customers can save 10 percent off a new Alienware system purchase (up to $150 limit) if they buy with bitcoins.
Before this formal announcement, Michael Dell in a tweet announced the move.
Dell is now the world’s largest ecommerce business to accept #bitcoin http://t.co/xC41rKTYXi http://t.co/0YqPK7MfVG
— Michael Dell (@MichaelDell) July 18, 2014
The firm says when someone is ready to make a purchase, they simply add the items to your cart and choose Bitcoin as the payment method.
“We’ve fostered a close partnership with the Dell team and that’s been instrumental in getting the Coinbase integration up and running in such a short timeframe. We look forward to continuing to support the team as they explore other ways to offer even more functionality when it comes to bitcoin payments,” said Fred Ehrsam, Co-Founder of Coinbase.
Dell has teamed up with Coinbase to handle the processing of Dell.com transactions on the bitcoin network. Coinbase is an international digital wallet that allows anyone to securely buy, use, and accept bitcoin currency.
Dell is not the first compnay to accept Bitcoins as firms such as Overstock and Expedia are already using Coinbase to accept bitcoin. Dell will take Bitcoin mainsteam with its $57 billion in sales in 2013 followed by the Dish Network with $13.9 billion in 2013 sales and Expedia with $4.8 billion in 2013 sales and lastly Overstock with $1.3 billion in 2013 sales according to the WSJ.
Yesterday, the paper announced that South Africa’s PayFast, a payment processor had said it will be accepting Bitcoin as a payment option for its 30,000 merchant customers becoming the first such firm in SA to do so and the first in the world.
