Tech-focused e-trailer Newegg announced last week it will now give customers in Canada the option of paying for their purchase with bitcoin. The company reported it first offered a bitcoin payment option to its U.S. customers in August 2014 and since that time bitcoin transactions have represented a small but growing stream of purchase transactions. Danny Lee, Newegg’s CEO, stated:
“In 2014 Newegg was among the first major companies to offer customers a bitcoin payment option. Since that time the value of bitcoin has skyrocketed and customers holding bitcoin have considerably more purchasing power. We believe the time is right to broaden our acceptance of bitcoin to our customers in Canada.”
Newegg also revealed that many of its 36 million customers reside in North America and now customers in both the U.S. and Canada can shop its complete portfolio of products using bitcoin. Newegg’s longstanding partner BitPay will also remain the bitcoin payment service provider (PSP), managing all of Newegg’s bitcoin-related transactions in the U.S. and now in Canada.
“With BitPay’s platform, Newegg accepts bitcoin payments and also handles refunds and payment exceptions with the most powerful bitcoin API in the industry. BitPay’s singular focus on building enterprise-grade merchant tools helped the company achieve 99.99% uptime – unrivaled reliability in the industry.”
BitPay CEO and co-founder, Stephen Pair, added:
“Newegg was an early e-commerce adopter of bitcoin, and that leap of faith the company took in 2014 put Newegg on the map as a bitcoin-friendly place for tech enthusiasts to shop. We’re seeing a lot of traction in Canada, and we’re happy to see Newegg extend its bitcoin payment option north of the border.”