According to a tweet published by Overstock.com CEO Patrick M. Byrne, the online retailer added an additional $130,000 in sales on the first full day of accepting the online digital currency known as Bitcoin. Those sales were the result of 840 orders, roughly averaging over $150 per order. In addition, the vast majority of these orders were placed by brand new customers. According to more information on Byrne’s Twitter account, the states with the highest number of users that paid with Bitcoin includes California, Florida, Texas and Washington.
In addition, the most common products ordered by users that paid with Bitcoin included tech related items like mobile phone cases and flash drives as well as home related items like sheets and bath towels. Remarking on the purchases, Byrne said “I expected more video cards.” Byrne also noted the lack of users that paid with Bitcoin in a heavily populated state like New York.
Overstock.com representatives haven’t indicated how the company will be handling currency conversions or what frequency those will occur. Hypothetically, Overstock.com could simply stockpile the digital currency in hopes that it will rise in value over time, but that strategy also runs the risk of losing value as well. It’s also not clear how the company will handle taxes on purchases made with Bitcoin.
That being said, $130,000 in sales in a single day isn’t tremendously large for the online retailer when compared to all sales revenue generated in a single day. During a twelve month period, the company generated roughly $1.47 billion in sales. On a daily basis, that comes out to about $3.4 million in sales. Thus, Bitcoin transactions added an additional four percent of sales for the day. However, the use of Bitcoin for online transactions on Overstock.com is likely to grow over time since the company is the largest online retailer that currently accepts the digital currency. For the moment, it provides a small competitive advantage to Overstock.com over retail giant Amazon.
