The question always remains whether, as a merchant, one can find the time and technical expertise to operate a node, especially when they need to be at the wholesaler by 5 AM and then clean the store in the evening.

Fortunately, there are already several providers in the market putting a lot of effort into offering merchants a great Lightning experience. Such options can certainly be highlighted in conversations with merchants.

Lederhosen

bitcoin

What fears and concerns have you encountered when speaking to merchants?

I have a local cafe interested in accepting bitcoin. The problem is everything that comes with doing lightning properly like opening a channel, then swapping some out. 

The other issue of converting back to fiat or splitting the payment up is not that easy either. There are some wallets that can do that, but are not optimally designed as a point of sale.

They really need to learn about bitcoin first. Or they can just use wallet of satoshi 