Starbucks will start coffee deliveries in China next month in a partnership with internet heavyweight Alibaba , as the US company looks to protect its lead in a fast-growing coffee market where it is facing tougher competition and a decline in sales.
Alibaba’s food delivery platform Ele.me will begin making deliveries from 150 Starbucks outlets in September, expanding to 2,000 stores by the end of the year. Alibaba will also install Starbucks delivery outlets in its chain of Hema grocery stores.
On August 3, Starbucks and a number of other companies including the Intercontinental Stock Exchange, Microsoft, and BCG announced they were forming Bakkt, a company that intends to create a “seamless global network” leveraging “Microsoft cloud solutions to create an open and regulated, global ecosystem for digital assets.” That inspired a wave of headlines speculating that you could soon be able to “pay for Frappuccinos with bitcoin.” Said venture is not, however, intended to help you leverage your internet money for caffeine per se, at least not yet.
A spokesperson for the multinational coffee chain clarified in comments to Motherboard that in fact “customers will not be able to pay for Frappuccinos with bitcoin,” but rather the company is part of a new venture creating a platform, Bakkt, to “convert digital assets like Bitcoin into U.S. dollars, which can be used at Starbucks,” adding:
“At the current time, we are announcing the launch of trading and conversion of Bitcoin. However, we will continue to talk with customers and regulators as the space evolves.”
Starbucks does, however, already accept digital payments in the form of its highly used mobile payments app, which reportedly outpaces Apple Pay, Google Pay, and Samsung Pay by millions of users. Bakkt appears to be more of a launching pad for regulated financial instruments involving bitcoin with the goal of smoothing out its rapid price fluctuations and, in the long run, replacing credit cards.
Bitcoin is accepted by PayPal as a form of payment. It’s run through payment processors such as GoCoin, Coinbase, and BitPay. They are one of the first companies to begin accepting cryptocurrencies as payment for transactions completed through them. In the future they are also considering the use of Ethereum, as well as other cryptocurrencies.
It appears that Microsoft first began accepting Bitcoin back in December of 2014. You can use Bitcoin to deposit funds into your Microsoft account. These funds, however, can only be used to purchase games, movies, and apps in the Windows and Xbox stores; you can't use them to buy things from the Microsoft online store.
Pizzaforcoins is one of the early companies that accept cryptocurrency. In fact, they accept over 50 different kinds of cryptocurrency. They started taking it in early 2013. They are so enthusiastic about cryptocurrency that it’s the only form of payment they accept.
Once the site verifies it has a pizza joint (Dominos, Pizza Hut or Papa John's) that is close to your location, you can order your pizza and pay for it with digital currency. A small fee for the service is included in your final payment amount.
Fly with CheapAir using your cryptocurrency. After you choose your flights you are given your payment options, including BTC. You can make both domestic and international flight arrangements with CheapAir. The travel company has been accepting bitcoin payments since 2013 and is the only one that will accept the currency as payment for air travel.
Source： Financial Times