Flower Shop Races to Convert Bitcoin Profits into “Real Cash”

Flower Shop China

Following the recent major news about bitcoin network hacking at particular bitcoin exchanges, many have become alarmed about the digital currency. Nevertheless, others are hopeful for a positive outcome. Online florist shop, Flower Delivery Hong Kong, had to make fast moves to be able to secure their profits from bitcoin.

Flower Shop Converts Profits

As soon as they receive payment in bitcoin, the Flower Delivery shop rushes to exchange the digital currency to “real- world” cash. This reaction comes as a result of the recent outbreaks in the bitcoin community, transaction malleability. Nevertheless, it was not a deterrence for the Flower Delivery shop to cease dealing in bitcoin but rather they are trying to work with it and make it work in their favor.

The Flower Delivery first began to accept bitcoin payments two weeks ago and have since seen a rise in people using the digital currency to buy from them. It was opened just in time to catch Valentine Day’s flower madness. They have since processed a total of four bitcoin transactions whose worth was a total of HK$600… for now.

Based in Hong Kong, the flower shop processed more than 500 orders on its busiest day of the year. Nonetheless, according to the director Leslie Wu Wai-Leung, the shop did not hold on to the any of the bitcoins once the deliveries were made. He said,

“The negative, for most people, is the volatility of bitcoin – the price of bitcoin. However, because we cash out straight away, that’s not a problem for us.”

Bitcoin Advantageous for Online Business

Even with the current volatility of the digital currency, Wu Wai-Leung comments on the advantages of dealing in bitcoin. “I was left with the positive aspects: lower transaction fees, instant payment and no chargeback, and we have a wider clientele overseas – like in Macau, where PayPal doesn’t process their orders. More than half of our customer base is overseas, and we rely mainly on PayPal at the moment, but they cause a few problems for us,” he stated.

Talking about the issues of dealing with PayPal, Wu Wai-Leung said that customers ordering for delivery to a different address other than their billing address would face a lot of problems. PayPal flags such transactions because of the perceived possibility of fraud.

“They mark some sales as ‘under review’ … it can take them up to 48 hours to process, which causes a big problem for us.”

This can be rough for Wu Wai-Leung because his shop specializes in same day delivery.

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