Bitcoin Makes a Rare Appearance Among Sonoma County Businesses

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In June, the Kenwood Hearing Centers in Santa Rosa recorded a groundbreaking business experiment that had nothing to do with audiology. This is a rare event for any business in Sonoma County.

Kenwood accepted payment from a customer for two hearing aids in bitcoin, the most common form of cryptocurrency. No cash, coins, credit card or paper check, but virtual money.

A man paid $ 1,799 in digital currency for hearing aids for his mother, said Adam Jasa, the hearing aid specialist who handled the milestone transaction.

Jasa had heard that the cryptocurrency was growing in popularity nationwide, with some retailers and restaurant chains, among other businesses, accepting it. I thought we should be the first audiologists to take bitcoin, he said.

Kenwood holds the bitcoin he collected during his initial crypto transaction in a digital wallet. Time will tell if the recent deal was a flash in the pan or the start of a trend for the North Bay chain of six hearing centers, including five in Sonoma County.

We wanted to look to the future and try it out, Jasa said of accepting bitcoin.

He noted that one of the advantages from a business perspective is that the transaction fees are generally lower than those charged by Visa, Mastercard and American Express for credit card transactions.

So far no other customer has inquired about paying in bitcoin, but Jasa said Kenwood will take it to one of his hearing centers.

Kellogg Fairbank, CEO of Nash, a financial technology platform offering an app with banking services and crypto transactions, said the main risks businesses face when accepting virtual currency payments are protecting their digital wallets and manage crypto exchange rates.

Traders need to be sure that they have stored their private digital keys securely and, ideally, should regularly sell any cryptocurrency they receive to avoid market volatility, Fairbank said.

In addition, he said, technical work is needed to integrate e-wallets on a blockchain, essentially a digital ledger or computer database into a retailer payment system, as well as to manage compliance and enforcement. accounting for tax purposes. And there are barriers to entry for businesses before they can accept virtual payments: primarily customers need to have a crypto wallet and have purchased digital currency to access it.

Realistically, the best option for small businesses right now is probably to use a third-party service to handle their crypto payments, Fairbanks said.

When it comes to incentivizing consumers to use digital currency, he said, it is quite difficult for a business to educate customers on the electronic payment method. For many consumers accustomed to cash and credit cards, bitcoin and other forms of virtual money remain intimidating.

Customers need to be able to experience digital currency themselves to potentially adapt to it, he said.

Well, keep a listening ear for more about other local businesses getting into the digital currency world. We know you can buy beers, cocktails, and pizza with bitcoin at the Starling Bar in Sonoma, and there are Safeway and Lucky supermarkets in this town with kiosks inside for customers to redeem. money for digital currency.

Using a financial lure

In a big indicator that area employers continue to struggle to fill jobs in the post-pandemic recovery, Olivers Market has raised wages and raised the company’s minimum full-time hourly wage from July 1 to $ 16, its highest starting level, said Sara Cummings, spokesperson for Sonoma County’s largest independent grocer with four stores. Now, hourly wages at Olivers range from $ 16 to $ 27.

The local employee-owned grocery chain had 48 full-time positions to fill on Thursday, Cummings said. The chain, founded here in 1988, employs 1,018 people, 75% of whom are full-time workers.

In addition, for the first time in its history, Olivers pays full-time hires in July for the most difficult positions to fill in the bakery, deli and butcher jobs in the meat department, a bonus of $ 500. . New employees hired this month in these roles will receive the bonus after three months on the job.

Cummings said company officials have not decided whether they will continue to pay the bonus for some hires in August.

The retail duo opens another store

Tracy Adams and her daughter Jessie Foell’s retail team enter the pandemic rebound ground floor by opening a Let It Fly men’s sports and casual wear store on Saturday on McClelland Drive on Town Green in Windsor.

This is the second store on Windsor Town Green for the mother-daughter duo, who opened the Trace & Jess womenswear boutique in November 2020.

The business acumen of this family is not limited to the two women. Adams’s husband, JC Adams, co-owns the Publican and KIN restaurants in Windsor and KINSmoke in Healdsburg.

Send your tips and ideas as this column chronicles the local economic recovery after the pandemic to [email protected]. Call or text 215-237-4448. Or you can message @BiznewsPaulB on Twitter.

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