The definitive guide to accept cryptocurrency in Shopify

A lot of questions popped in merchants mind when Coinbase Commerce announced the integration with Shopify. This is huge because now merchants will be able to sell goods with Ethereum (ETH) and Litecoin (LTC).

I will try to respond the most common questions with this guide about setup, fees and share some ideas to marketing. I will frequently keep this guide updated with the features launched by this great possibility in the e-commerce space.

Go ahead and let’s dive into e-commerce crypto revolution. 👇

Index

1. Introduction – Some recommendations before start
2. Advantages – Know the advantages about crypto versus payment gateways
3. Setup Coinbase – Learn to setup your Coinbase integration with Shopify
4. Enable Coinbase on Shopify – Enable Coinbase on the store
5. Show the price as crypto – Put a currency selector and show the price as Crypto
6. Marketing Ideas – Tips about sales channels, product sourcing and ads
7. Fees – Understand about the Shopify and Coinbase fees
8. Apps in this guide – Know the best apps to improve your results

1. Introduction

I assume that you’re familiarized with cryptocurrencies but if you not, this lessons are a good start point. I recommend you to read and understand the logic behind the crypto. Always remember that’s exist a lot of scammers out there, make sure that’s your devices are free of spywares before begin. The wallet need to be strongly secured (you can print your wallet secret, put coins on usb dongles, etc), and remember to never share your private key.

2. Advantages

For merchants, the advantages of receiving cryptocurrencies are great. Payments made using the virtual currency save substantially on processing fees and eliminate the risk of charge-backs. For shoppers the advantages of paying with bitcoin include greater simplicity in placing the transaction, user anonymity, no interruptions from intermediaries (for example your account being frozen as a result of a fraud alert), and very low transaction fees.

3. Setup Coinbase

Are you excited with the new possibilities? Let’s begin to setup your store to accept crypto right now. Go ahead and follow the steps below.

Sign up for Coinbase Commerce

Sign up for a Coinbase Commerce account and follow the instructions to get started. After verifying your email address, adding two-factor authentication, and securely storing your recovery phrase, you’re ready to start accepting cryptocurrency payments.

Create a Coinbase Commerce API Key

First navigate to your Settings page which can be accessed using the left hand navigation menu:

Within Settings you’ll find an API Keys section. Click on Create an API Key to create a new API key that will be used to connect your Shopify store to your Coinbase Commerce account:

Click Reveal to see the entire API Key but remember to keep this secret as it gives programmatic access to your account!

4. Add Coinbase Commerce in Shopify

To start accepting multiple cryptocurrencies using Coinbase Commerce:

4.a. Go to Settings and select Payment providers from within Shopify.

4.b. Under Alternative payments select Coinbase Commerce.

4.c. For Email enter the email address used to create your Coinbase Commerce account.

4.d. For API Key copy and paste the API Key created earlier within Coinbase Commerce.

4.e. Click Save

That’s it! Your customers are now able to checkout and pay with Bitcoin, Bitcoin Cash, Ethereum or Litecoin and in the next topic you will be learn how to show your products price as crypto.

5. Show the price as Crypto

The best way to reach more crypto customers is to showing the price converted with their favorite coin. The most complete way to do this is using a Shopify app called Coin.

Coin is the first currency converter app wich support to Litecoin, Ethereum and Bitcoin.

If you’re not familiarized with HTML and CSS code, put a small task on StoreTasker or talk with the ShopPad support to get this done.

6. Marketing ideas

Reddit is a great channel to reach crypto enthusiasts. This audience is engaged and if you product and offer are catchy you can get a lot of traffic. Neil Patel has a great article about this channel.

You can also:

1. Capture leads with push notifications
2. Get more recurring orders by creating your own app that’s accept crypto
3. Create remarketing campaigns with your Facebook Pixel
4. Experiment with Facebook ads
5. Capture emails with a VIP offers list specific for crypto audience

If you are looking for products ideas, try to sell crypto thematic goods. You can use Spocket app to source products from Europe, US and Canada or you can also create unique products with this subject using print on demand services like the Printful app. Below you find a list linking with to all apps recommendations.

7. Fees

It is being said that Coinbase Commerce have the same 1% fee model, which it has implied for withdrawing the cryptos to fiat currencies in your bank account. This will make Coinbase very competitive with other alternatives in the market like PayPal which has a fee structure and charge of 2-3% with an additional 0.30 cents on every transaction.

Remember that Shopify charge extra fees based of your current plan. Please check the Shopify Pricing Page to get details.

8. Apps in this guide

We have installed some free and payed Shopify apps to ilustrate this guide and also used a FREE theme called Debut (provided by Shopify). You can take a look at our demo store and test the checkout experience with all the features mentioned here.

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Sources:

Bitcoin Transactions Vs. Credit Card Transactions | Investopedia

Coinbase Launches Commerce Button, a PayPal-Like Plugin to Accept Crypto Payments

Disclosure: I own small amounts of various cryptocurrencies.