UPDATE (19th February, 2015 17:00 GMT): Updated with comment from Dell CIO Paul Walsh.
Dell has announced it has expanded its bitcoin payments program to consumers in the UK and Canada.
The announcement was revealed today at eTail West, an annual e-commerce conference, during a keynote address by CIO Paul Walsh.
In remarks, Walsh suggested that the decision was prompted by customer demand and the positive feedback the company had so far received for its US offering.
Walsh said:
“We’re hearing from our customers around the world that they want the option to use bitcoin when buying Dell products, so we are excited to deliver bitcoin as a payment method on Dell.com to our customers in Canada and the UK.”
Dell has been accepting bitcoin for purchases via its US store since July 2014. The company will continue to receive local currency from Coinbase in exchange for bitcoin orders, in this case GBP and the Canadian dollar.
Earning $56.9bn in revenue in 2013, Dell remained the largest merchant in the bitcoin space until December when it was replaced by tech giant Microsoft.
The news also follows the decision by e-commerce leader Overstock to expand its bitcoin payment option to global consumers, though it has since reported struggles encouraging international customers to use bitcoin.
Choice and flexibility
Speaking to CoinDesk, Walsh elaborated on the news stressing that bitcoin’s ability to provide consumers with added choice and flexibility was key to Dell’s decision to expand the payments program.
Walsh noted that since accepting the program, bitcoin has become a popular purchasing tool for both consumers as well as business customers. “We’re seeing purchases across our full product spectrum,” he noted.
He indicated that Dell would not be launching any special promotions for bitcoin users, but said future offers would be posted to Dell.com.
Above all, however, he was positive in his comments about bitcoin as a payment method, adding:
“We will offer bitcoin as long as our customers demand it – it is one method of payment available to them to make purchasing products and solutions from Dell easier and meet them on their terms.”
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