Newegg to Accept Bitcoin Payments from Canadian Customers

Newegg Inc., the online e-commerce site that is rivaling Amazon for sales in technical equipment and electronics, is expanding its payment options to include bitcoin for its customers in Canada.

Apparently unfazed by recent price volatility and citing “the increasing mainstream awareness of cryptocurrencies,” Newegg is showing its confidence in the future of the cryptocurrency by extending its current policy of accepting bitcoin payments from U.S. customers to Canadian customers.

BitPay manages Newegg’s bitcoin-related transactions in the U.S. and will now manage all Canadian bitcoin payments with what Newegg calls “the most powerful bitcoin API in the industry.”

BitPay’s CEO and co-founder, Stephen Pair, said in a news release:

“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.”

He added, “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.”

Newegg uses BitPay’s API to create and manage invoices, manage bills, issue refunds and view merchant ledger entries. Newegg noted that “BitPay’s singular focus on building enterprise-grade merchant tools helped the company achieve 99.99% uptime — unrivaled reliability in the industry.”

Recently BitPay announced a partnership with the South Korean exchange Bithumb to enable businesses there to issue invoices in bitcoin.

Newegg, a California-based retailer, first started accepting bitcoin from American customers in August 2014 and has never looked back.

According to the company, bitcoin payments from the U.S. have represented “a small but growing stream of purchase transactions.”

“In 2014 Newegg was among the first major companies to offer customers a bitcoin payment option,” said Danny Lee, CEO of Newegg.

“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.”

According to Newegg, it is the leading tech e-retailer in North America with customers in more than 50 countries in Europe, Asia, Latin America and the Middle East, and has more than 36 million registered users.

The company says it is consistently ranked as one of the best online shopping destinations and regularly earns industry-leading customer service ratings.