E-Commerce Giant, Newegg, Expands BTC Payment to 73 More Countries

Sead Fadilpašić
Last updated: | 1 min read

Major U.S.-based online retailer Newegg said it will start accepting bitcoin in 73 additional of its country-specific stores.

Source: Instagram, Newegg

Given that Newegg provides its services in 81 countries, with plans to add more according to their website, today’s announcement means that “Newegg customers can now pay with bitcoin in nearly all of the countries the company serves worldwide.”

Anthony Chow, Newegg President Global Sales, claims that the company was one of the first major online retailers to accept bitcoin, and that the early-adopter customers quickly accepted the option. Bringing the ability to pay with BTC to all of the countries they serve is a part of their “commitment to bring innovation to the online shopping experience”, Chow explained, but it also “answers customers’ growing preference for our bitcoin payment option.”

Online electronics and software retail giant teased that it may start accepting BTC all the way back in January 2014. Indeed, in July 2014, the company teamed up with the major cryptocurrency payment processor BitPay to convert bitcoin sales into USD. It expanded the option to Canada in August that year. Not a single chargeback has been required for a bitcoin transaction on Newegg since the option was made available, the announcement states, without providing any numbers.

According to the latest available data, revenues of Newegg reached USD 2.7 billion in 2019, when it had 2,500 employees.

For its e-commerce partners, it’s explained, BitPay processes some USD 1 billion in Bitcoin transactions a year. It leverages the blockchain to provide transactional transparency and remove chargebacks, while enabling their partner, in this case Newegg, “to increase its margin on each bitcoin transaction by avoiding credit card fees typically assessed on credit card purchases.”

Meanwhile, at the end of May this year, AT&T announced that its subsidiary, AT&T Communications has partnered with BitPay in order to process crypto payments.

Bitcoin, on the other hand, dropped yet again below USD 10,000. At the time of writing (14:59 UTC), BTC is at USD 9,849, dropping 1.53% in the 24 hours, but increasing 1.5% the past week.