Hey Guys, this is Jessica from Bitspend :) I want to cover a few things.
1. Yes, there is a lot wrong with the site right now - including the order form. We had been working all week on the new site, including an automated order-form, and at 4AM this morning we had major issues with the server. Since we had already publicized our launch, we chose to put together what we could for today as we fix the issues that broke the "real" site. We know the site right now is not what it should be - and its killing us too! We promise to have it all fixed shortly.
2. About our contact information. Within the week not only will we have 800 numbers for you to call for support, but we will also have our office address available, and invite anyone in our area to come in and check us out themselves.
We are aware that what we are doing will take time to build trust in the community, and we will go above and beyond to make sure we earn it. We will continue to work on ways to improve our service to you, and to expand our offerings.
We have a long road ahead, just as the Bitcoin economy itself does. We plan on making the most out of it and providing you all with a way to purchase ANYTHING(Legal!!) with Bitcoins.
My understanding of the business is that the item IS shipped directly to the consumer. I send them X bitcoins (plus a $2 fee), and a link to amazon.com item, and they buy it for me using their credit card, and Amazon ships it to me not them.
Interesting idea. When I saw the title, my first thoughts went to prepaid one-time credit cards, and I think that might work as a scalable version of this: specify how much you want to spend, send the corresponding amount of BTC (plus fee) to a specified address, and get a credit card number with that much on it to use at an arbitrary merchant that accepts credit cards.
I don't know of any, no; you'd probably want to partner with a friendly local bank for that. Offering such an API seems like a great unfilled business idea; I can easily think of half a dozen great businesses to build around that API, and a couple of really obvious business models to charge for it.
Interesting. My initial thoughts were around a business built on that (better solving the problem I'm trying to address), but just an API could be huge.
Looking around the internet, I've found a couple related things:
I'm no expert on bitcoin, but I've read that you can have as many addresses as you want. You could generate a new address for each time you order through bitspend and never give them your "main" address. Overall it may or may not be a better option than just buying directly from a merchant because of other considerations.
Gaining trust is key if you want people to give you personal and financial information, and the 30 second Bootstrap website really isn't inspiring any confidence -- especially the visible seams in your pasted together background, the complete lack of form validation, and all the blank links at the bottom.
Yeah, it makes perfect sense to hand your address and bitcoins to anyone with a half-finished Bootstrap website, zero contact information, and zero information about their payment/delivery process.
This is likely to solicit questions about whether purchases can be anonymous. However, I don't think that matters. As long as an average Joe (who doesn't care about anonymity) can use this to spend bitcoins, the overall acceptance of the currency should increase. That benefits all bitcoin users, including the paranoid ones.
I think it's good to have it mentioned, regardless. Too many sites claim they "won't turn over information" or claim they don't keep records, only to later say "ok well for LE, yeah", proving they had your data the entire time.
It's possible to submit the order form at https://www.bitspend.net/order.html and receive a success message without completing any of the fields. No validation - a big bug?
I think an MVP of anything related to finances (be it cash, card, or bitcoin) should include SSL and validation. I see there's SSL.
In any case, adding simple form validation there would have taken <10 minutes with a decent library (especially given that they're already "using" jQuery - though perhaps not actually "using"; it seems that they've taken the Bootstrap example HTML wholesale, and include a bunch of other Bootstrap jQuery plugins that they're not using - or have at least included it).
Apparently their MVP includes a "secure warehouse"... but not ten minutes of Javascript?
There are many things that can be excused under the umbrella of "... but MVP!".
This site is asking people to place their trust in an anonymous entity to the sum of several hundred dollars - I say anonymous because there is ZERO contact information on the site, no address, email (well, other than for Media Requests), or anything.
Speaking of anonymity, there are also no corporate registration records for "Bitspend LLC" in Florida (where the domain is registered), or the US, for that matter.
MVP or not, this site doesn't scream "credibility".
We love the constructive criticism, however we would like to ask that you stick to facts when claiming something:
"Speaking of anonymity, there are also no corporate registration records for "Bitspend LLC" in Florida "
If you did a simple business title search on the FL sunbiz site, you would find Bitspend LLC listed, right at the top :)
As far as your other concerns, we are able to admit that where the site is at this exact moment is not where it should be. We promise to have it up to your standards by end of week!!
Not my site, but I think "Standard orders" go direct to you not to a warehouse. You pay shipping from the original seller, whatever they charge. You pay customs fees. Returns are going to be a pain in the ass - don't expect to be able to do that very easily.
For "anonymous orders", the concept doesn't seem thought through very well. Only 5% fee on any order from $1-$300? So I want to buy something from eBay for $1, you will anonymize that for 5 cents? I don't think so. I doubt you'll be able to do international orders anonymously.
1. Yes, there is a lot wrong with the site right now - including the order form. We had been working all week on the new site, including an automated order-form, and at 4AM this morning we had major issues with the server. Since we had already publicized our launch, we chose to put together what we could for today as we fix the issues that broke the "real" site. We know the site right now is not what it should be - and its killing us too! We promise to have it all fixed shortly.
2. About our contact information. Within the week not only will we have 800 numbers for you to call for support, but we will also have our office address available, and invite anyone in our area to come in and check us out themselves.
We are aware that what we are doing will take time to build trust in the community, and we will go above and beyond to make sure we earn it. We will continue to work on ways to improve our service to you, and to expand our offerings.
We have a long road ahead, just as the Bitcoin economy itself does. We plan on making the most out of it and providing you all with a way to purchase ANYTHING(Legal!!) with Bitcoins.