All popular bitcoin payment services offer multiple mediums for merchants to accept bitcoin payments. They include solutions for various platforms, like integration with e-commerce platforms like Shopify, PrestaShop, and Magento; for payment through in-store point-of-sale (POS) systems, like Soft Touch and DC POS; and for direct payments from within the popular billing and accounting solutions, like Host Bill and Invoice Ninja.

One can also find solutions for accepting donations in bitcoins through such services, which include integration with donor services like NationBuilder and Targeted Victory. App developers can find ready-made functions and code libraries in Android SDK and iOS SDK, and in programming languages like Java, Perl, and PHP, which enable them to accept bitcoin payments through their apps and portals.

Essentially, anyone who signs up for bitcoin merchant services can start receiving bitcoin payments from the customers via any and all kinds of transaction mediums from across the globe. A bright kid in Ethiopia can develop a great Android app and receive bitcoin payments from global users using the bitcoin payment integrated with the Android software development kit; or a prominent restaurant in Venice, Italy can use the bitcoin payment-enabled Soft Touch POS to receive bitcoin payments from its patrons.

Bitcoin Payment Workflow: Step by Step
In terms of steps, the following workflow gets executed:

1. Your customer opts to make payment in bitcoins at the checkout (in-store, on the web, or in-app).

2. He pays the amount at the locked-in exchange rate applicable at the time of the transaction.

3. The bitcoin payment service instantly converts the received bitcoins into the currency of your choice, eliminating the volatility risk.

4. The money gets added to your account, and it finally gets credited to your designated bank account at the decided frequency once the accumulated account crosses the threshold limit.

The service also sends the necessary details in a secure manner to the blockchain network for the transaction to be authenticated and recorded on the public ledger.

Miners, who verify and add the transactions to the blockchain, receive a bitcoin miner fee. This fee does not go to the payment service but is given to reward the miners for their work done for verification and authentication.

Advantages of Bitcoin Payment Services
Compared to a standard credit card payment, bitcoin payments purport to be relatively cheaper due to lower transaction costs. A payment service, like BitPay, charges a flat 1% settlement fee to the merchant, compared to 2% to 3% charged by the fiat currency credit card processing service.

Bitcoin payment services allow a borderless payment network, which enables seamless transfer of bitcoins in any amount from anywhere across the globe, through any mobile or computer, to the merchant’s account in a large number of countries in a currency of merchant’s choice.

Bitcoin payment services claim to maintain transparency in the highly dynamic exchange rates between bitcoin and the fiat currency.

Using such services, a merchant not only gets various mediums to accept global payments, but he also gets a reliable and authentic identity in the virtual world of cryptocurrencies, which is much safer, transparent, and dependable for getting payments.

Imagine being asked to make a direct payment to an individual bitcoin wallet, versus seeing the payment being processed through the network of an established payment service provider – a customer would find the latter more trustworthy to proceed with. That is the value-add a business gets from such services.