Taking P2P trading to the next level is a fantastic way to expand and grow your trading business.
Increasing your proficiency as a peer-to-peer vendor or even as a casual trader gives you access to better deals, more volume, and more opportunities. However, don't let complacency stop you from exploring what else you could be doing to push your trading to the next level and increase your profitability. More advanced trading techniques come with more flexibility, one of the best traits for a P2P trader.
Breaking Language Barriers
If like many people, you only speak one language, this doesn't have to be a limitation as a vendor. You don't have to spend months (or years) learning multiple languages to serve those who don't speak the same language you do.
There's a range of free translation services to help you work with customers who speak languages that you don't. Google translate, one of the most well-known translation services, can be used from a web browser or even a standalone mobile app. Bing translate and many others are also wonderful alternatives. Just keep in mind that translating payment information could result in mispayment if the information is changed from the original text.
Suppose you need to double-check a translation quickly. In that case, translation apps like Google translate sometimes support using your phone or tablet camera to translate the text by pointing the camera towards the trade chat on your computer or second device. Of course, this approach limits your ability to respond, but if you are second-guessing something and want a quick way to double-check, it can be a beneficial feature to be aware of and use.
When trading with those from other countries, it's best to use international payment methods or those you are very familiar with already. While translation will help you most of the time, it isn't perfect. You may need to clarify something or make an educated guess as to what someone means, but modern translation software for many languages is surprisingly good. If in doubt about something, feel free to clarify, and if you are still having trouble understanding someone and aren't comfortable proceeding, you can always decline the trade.
You'll find some languages translate to others more clearly, so as for what works well, that will be up to you to explore. For example, grabbing some text from a Spanish website and translating it to (again, for example) English could help you attain how easy it is to read once converted. Experiment a little to see how comfortable you are with translation. If you find that you can work with other languages, consider creating trade offers in different regions to help spread your business to more parts of the world.
Cryptocurrency breaks barriers and with a little extra effort, you can too.
Trading Automation
Growing as a vendor can result in you looking for ways to increase your ability to handle more trades or reduce the time cost associated with managing the number of cryptocurrency trades you deal with already. In addition, some of the more advanced cryptocurrency P2P traders opt to look at automating some of their trading processes.
Some P2P marketplaces have an API (application programming interface). An API enables you to interact programmatically and more directly with your account without using the website or app you usually need to use when performing specific tasks.
LocalCoinSwap offers a highly well-documented and flexible API and is one of the many reasons a growing number of more prominent P2P traders are making a move. Learn even more at the LocalCoinSwap API Examples GitHub Repository. The documentation includes examples for engaging with each endpoint using either Python, Javascript, or even Bash Scripting.
Using the API, you can produce (or have created for you by contracted developers) everything from simple scripts to automate tasks that can take a few moments. For example, consistently modifying several trades through to fully customized graphical user interfaces and customized dashboards. You may find it difficult to find much in the form of projects to use as your own as many vendors pay for the development of these out of their own pockets, so as you can imagine, they will want to make the most of that edge they can provide.
Examples of Cryptocurrency Trading Automation or Trading Bots:
- Autoresponders
- Trade offer managers (pause, modify, change margins, batch processing)
- Process payment automatically
- Chatbots that answer common questions
- Arbitrage bots
- Third-party cryptocurrency wallets
- Custom dashboards
- Accept or reject trades basic with set conditions (rating, trade count)
- Automate triggers for pausing offers based on market conditions
- Look for specific types of trades that trigger alerts
- Automatic release when payment is received
- Automate pricing adjustment with niche or custom pricing algorithms
Combining Multiple Liquidity Sources
Arbitrage trading with cryptocurrency is still a popular form of trading for a good reason; prices vary across exchanges, even for established cryptocurrencies like bitcoin. For this reason, as vendors become more established or are looking for more advanced ways to increase their margins, they often look to take advantage of these price variations.
Combining several sources for buying or selling your traded cryptocurrency is an excellent way to ensure that you always get the best possible price. So, in turn, you can also provide more competitive cryptocurrency prices to your customers. While you can do this manually when you need to buy or sell crypto by price checking across your various accounts or using a site like CoinMarketCap or Nomics, you can also take advantage of the same tools used by arbitrage traders. You can even use cryptocurrency portfolio trackers to monitor cross-platform pricing if you wish.
Avoiding using just one source to manage your crypto liquidity can help you trade as close to market price as possible while making worthwhile margins for yourself. Small percentages add up and, over time, can add up to a significant windfall. If you are a high-volume trader, you may even be able to negotiate a smaller fee with a centralized exchange so they can try to retain your business or avoid you spreading your volume to competitors.
You can even take advantage of your cryptocurrency holdings if you want to trade with the trends and reduce or increase your exposure during certain market conditions. Becoming a more advanced vendor is best achieved by increasing your adaptability and flexibility in ways that can benefit you, so explore what options you have available and do what is well suited to your circumstances.
There is no one size fits all solution to finding the right ways to source liquidity or manage your liquidity as a vendor.
Accepting Credit Cards & Other Advanced Payment Types
Some payment types are more challenging to accept or manage, but that doesn't mean you can't investigate offering them to your customers. Even if you are primarily a cash-in-person trader, it doesn't hurt to explore what else is out there and educate yourself on some of the more advanced payment methods vendors are less commonly accepting.
Credit Cards: While credit cards can be difficult, some traders trade with them and provide a valuable service for those looking to use credit or debit cards to buy bitcoin and other cryptos. A third-party trusted payment processor is typically used, and you should never be required to directly hand over credit card or debit card numbers to someone as this can result in theft or fraud. While many credit card payment processors are not cryptocurrency-friendly, vendors can use a range of workarounds depending on what is available to them.
If you are struggling to find a suitable approach, look at other vendors around you and see what methods they seem to use to give you some avenues to investigate. For example, some vendors opt to use PayPal "donation" links to accept credit card payments without the buyer having their credit card associated with a PayPal account.
Gift Cards: Trading bitcoin for gift cards can be easy, but doing it well at scale can be a little more complex for a vendor. Ensuring that you are getting unused cards and minimizing your risk of disputes can be difficult. Building a solid reputation and track record for yourself can help you significantly when trading with more advanced payment methods like gift cards. When accepting gift cards, ensuring you can lock in or use the balances before releasing the escrow is essential as the buyer will still have the code for the gift card.
Many popular gift cards for trading bitcoin allow you to add the balance directly to your account; this way, you can transfer the gift card's balance before confirming receipt of payment. These are much more preferable as they are easier to secure. However, other types may require you to quickly use them to purchase something so that you can confirm you had access to the balance, and it can no longer be used by the crypto buyer you are trading with at the time.
Bill Payment: While this is a less complicated payment type to offer, where it does get advanced is ensuring that you record you paying the bill requested by a customer in one way or another. If you aren't familiar with the company, you are paying a bill with, recording a video of you paying and confirming payment can help you keep a record in case of disputes. If you offer crypto for bill payment trades, it can be a convenient service for other traders and quite lucrative as a vendor as it can be quite an in-demand type of trade that not many think to offer.
The key to offering bill payments for bitcoin is to understand that you will be dealing with various companies that can vary in how they accept payment. However, you can reduce the issues involved by screening and putting together a list of popular places in your region that you will take these trades for (e.g., phone companies, power companies, other utilities) and then including this list in your terms. Just beware that the more you limit these trades, the more you risk missing out on trading opportunities, so try to find a good balance between what you are willing to offer and what you don't.
Custom Pricing Equations
Sometimes dynamic pricing isn't enough, and you want to take things a step further. A common way that vendors do this is by using custom pricing equations. Using this approach allows you to fine-tune your trade offer.
If you're trading on LocalCoinSwap, you can set your own custom equations for pricing your trade offers, which are easily modified at any time by editing your trade offer.
Understanding Custom Price Equations: How to use Pricing Equations?