I run a popular open-source project that sells digital merchandise to support its community. It's not a huge business, but it's enough to keep me in coffee and servers. Two years ago, we were using PayPal to handle payments. It worked beautifully for a while, but then we hit a roadblock.
## The Problem We Were Actually Solving
We were selling digital products to a global audience. Our community was spread across many countries, and we needed a payment gateway that could handle transactions from anywhere. PayPal was convenient and widely accepted, so we started using it to process our payments. However, as our sales grew, we began to encounter issues with PayPal's restrictions. They would freeze our accounts or decline payments from certain countries without warning. It was frustrating and caused a lot of stress for our community.
## What We Tried First (And Why It Failed)
We tried to work around PayPal's restrictions by using a payment processor that would allow us to send and receive payments through our own bank account. We thought that way, we could avoid PayPal's bureaucratic red tape and still process payments from anywhere. We ended up setting up an account with a company called TransferWise, which seemed like a good solution at first. However, they had their own set of issues, and we discovered that their fees were much higher than what we were used to with PayPal. On top of that, their support for cryptocurrency transactions was non-existent.
## The Architecture Decision
We eventually decided to switch to using cryptocurrencies for our digital product sales. We started accepting Bitcoin, Ethereum, and Litecoin as payment options. This decision was not taken lightly, as it required us to set up a whole new system for managing our transactions and wallet balances. However, it turned out to be the best choice for us. We were able to avoid the bureaucratic headaches of PayPal and TransferWise, and our fees decreased significantly. Plus, our customers loved the flexibility of being able to pay with cryptocurrency.
## What The Numbers Said After
After switching to cryptocurrency payments, our sales increased by 15% within the first month. Our fees decreased by 20%, which was a huge cost savings for us. We also noticed a significant decrease in the number of declined payments and frozen accounts. Our community was much happier with the new payment system, and we were able to focus on what mattered most – building and maintaining our open-source project.
## What I Would Do Differently
In retrospect, I would have explored cryptocurrency payment options earlier on. We might have been able to avoid the frustration and stress of dealing with PayPal's restrictions and TransferWise's high fees. However, this experience taught us the importance of being adaptable and willing to take calculated risks in our business decisions. It also highlighted the need to have a robust and flexible payment system in place for our digital product sales.
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