Luxury E-Tailer Farfetch Set to Enter Crypto Space, To Accept Payments in BTC, ETH

Bitcoin, Ether, and other cryptocurrencies will be acceptable payment options at Farfetch, a luxury e-tailer brand. The British-Portuguese company connects international fashion brands, boutiques, and departmental stores with interested buyers globally. In a bid to show its support to the budding crypto sector, Farfetch will also open payments in a total of seven cryptocurrencies, including Binance Coin. As per José Neves, the founder and chairperson of Farfetch, has said that this makes for a crucial step in the economic revamp of the company.

“This was a crucial step to test and learn, and we are excited to [now] share our technical and service know-how with our community. With this move, we look forward to empowering our incredible boutique and brand partners to embrace cryptocurrency,” a report by Vogue quoted Neves as saying.

Shoppers on the Farfetch website, interested in using cryptocurrencies for purchases, will have to link their crypto wallets to the website interface via a QR code to process payments.

German crypto platform Lunu has been roped-in by Farfetch to facilitate crypto transactions for all these high-end brands and boutiques listed on its marketplace.

Returns that have been accepted by Farfetch or one of its sellers, will also be processed in the original cryptocurrency at the current exchange rate.

In recent times, several luxury brands have opened payments in cryptocurrencies for their clients.

Swiss watch-maker Tag Heuer, Italian apparel label Gucci, and French luxury label Balenciaga are among top brands that have begun experimenting with crypto payments.

Despite the newness and volatility of the crypto sector at this point, several industries are joining the pro-crypto side of financial arrangements around the world.

In a recent report, Deloitte claimed that over 75 percent retailers in the US are confident that crypto payments will become normal in the next few years.

The interest of consumers in the crypto sector has been cited as a main reason why retail merchants in the US are looking to add the option of crypto payments.

Moreover, cryptocurrencies are seemingly tickling the fancies of the rich and influential crowd, globally.

In nations like India, Vietnam, China, Indonesia, Japan, Malaysia, Singapore, and Thailand — the holdings of crypto and other digital assets have risen multi-fold in recent years, a report by Accenture said last week.

For now, crypto makes for the fifth largest asset class in Asia, despite which, 67 percent of wealth management firms have no plans to offer digital assets services and offerings.