Great question! The advantages are many. However, I see many blockers by merchants we talk with, especially from a compliance and from a technical implementation perspective. And one of the question they ask is exactly this: what are the benefits? more paperwork, more maintenance, etc?
Implementing the right technical solution to enable a bitcoin payment gateway comes with challenges depending on what the current solution the business is using. Most of the ecommerce today offers a bitcoin or lighting integration for easy setup, both custodial or noncustodial.
For the compliance side, it's easy. Bitcoin, with lightning, is just as extra digital cash flow, so in the books you treat it as such. Who wouldn't want and extra cashflow?
Truly global. No need for complicated interbank rules
Peer to peer. Bank can't screw with you or your clients.
Lower processing fees than credit card, which are usually absorbed by the merchant. (LN processing fees around 0.1%, credit card processing fees around 2-3%)
Cons
Technical headaches of the lightning network.
But IMO the con is pretty minimal, esp if you willing to use custodial solutions (which I think is totally fine as long as you don't float a large amount with the custodian.)
There is a forced dichotomy when dealing with online or electronic payments from the merchant's perspective. If you don't accept payments via the LN, then you must use an intermediary to handle your transactions--visa. If you do use visa, you as the merchant are subject to an uncapped 3% fee for every transaction. For a mass producer with tiny margins, another forced dichotomy presents itself. You either eat those fees yourself and your business fails or you pass those fees onto your customer. The merchant who is using explicitly the LN does not have this fee burden, as in our world fees are the burden of the sender, gains significant economic advantage over his peers. Not only can said merchant use the LN to collect the soundest money ever discovered in exchange for his time, energy, and expertise, but he can now afford to lower his prices where his visa-using competitors cannot--increasing their customer base at the expense of their competition.
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