View Full Version : Would paysites accept alternative payment options?
Would paysite be ready to accept alternative payment options, which prehaps pay less, and maybe are not as "flexible" as credit cards (ex. trial/recurring billing)?
But the risk of accepting these alternative payment options would be less, and might even bring in more total new members?
Most paysites and sponsor programs are build on the "credit card" signup model, but what if credit cards would become very risky to accept, and alternative payment options would be there... would paysites use them?
Would sponsor programs be ready to offer lower payout per new member on these alternative payment options?
Hooper
05-22-2003, 09:48 PM
Arent most sponsor programs using alternative signup methods such as ach and web900?
And sure.. i imagine if cc's went away you'd see a drop in payouts... and signups would go down.
Yes - paysites already have a few options, but usual they are looked at as 2nd choice. CC´s are still the number 1 option on most paysites, but would CC´s be replaced or prehaps just moved to 2nd choice, if visa/mc rules and risks become too great?
I have seen some sites move online checks to their number 1 option on US traffic, but because there are no really "global" alternative payment option (ok maybe dialers, but they mostly suck these days), then it stops with the US traffic. What if there were real alternative options? (beside dialers)...
I do not know if Visa/Mastercard really wants to be a "player" in the adult transaction industry, but I do know that there are ALOT of other payment options out there who would love to get more business.
Hooper
05-22-2003, 10:15 PM
what other payment options do you suggest for us based transactions rolo?
you seem to have some thoughts on the issue.
i'm all ears.
me too ...
but i'm all eyes ;-)
Rolo, you sound like you are thinking and I'd love to see inside your head ... you've always had some really good points to make about running paysites ... please share!
We made some research 1½ year ago regarding alternative payment options. I just finished reading what we had thought of back then. Our plan was not to get rid of CC´s, but to lower the total amount of transactions/members Visa/Mastercard would receive.
US was/is still the land of CC´s, ACH and #900, but international we had a few good ideas, which I will research again...
I think we droped the plans back then, because we were not sure if our webmasters were ready for a lower payout per member. But I´m guessing that webmasters are ready for solutions, which gives them security rather then the promise of a few more risky dollars in their pocket.
Hooper
05-22-2003, 10:55 PM
Then unfortunately you havent reached any new conclusions regarding usa customers.
the usa is currently the biggest purchaser online. and since most isps are paid via credit card, it makes cc the primary way.
i'm curious what % of surfers have discover cards. dont know much about them but they never get mentioned with regards to the cb's and rfs. anybody know?
Hell Puppy
05-22-2003, 11:00 PM
Didn't we just do this thread a couple of weeks ago in relation to ePassporte?
Credit cards are going to be the preferred method of payment for as long as we have a way to process them....even if recurring goes away. The reason is that is what most of our would-be customers have in their pocket and are most comfortable using on the net.
ACH is second choice, again because most people have a checking account. It might would contend for preferred choice if the banks would all play nice and come up with a common way to verify funds availability if not go ahead and transfer the money in realtime.
Everything else is a distant third. *But* webmaster acceptance isn't the real challenge. The real challenge is USER acceptance. Whatever comes about, whether it be a true prepaid card or a prepaid broker system ala paypal, has to have a critical mass of users in order to work. The trick is how do you get it into the hands of a critical mass of users.
Paypal did it. But they do not want to play with us anymore. Paypal saw the need for person to person payments on Ebay and rode that wave. Same thing might happen in adult if MC/Visa totally ban adult entertainment transactions online. Without that, no one has managed to solved the puzzle. Many people have tried, some have come close, but no one has yet found the magic combination. ePassporte is trying to solve it right now. I was involved with a pre-paid venture last year that had a real shot, and I'm sure most all of the processors have at least brainstormed alternate payment concepts.
I almost think the solution has to come from outside the adult arena and has to grow it's legs elsewhere. When it comes to money, trust is a key factor with consumers, and they do not trust the online adult marketplace....as an industry we've pissed in the well way too often with things like bullshit free signups that result in never ending rebills, etc.
Last edited by Hell Puppy at May 22 2003, 10:10 PM
slavdogg
05-22-2003, 11:10 PM
Originally posted by Hooper@May 22 2003, 08:56 PM
Arent most sponsor programs using alternative signup methods such as ach and web900?
hooper, you'd be surprised how many paysites and major sponsors still dont offer ACh as a sign up option. Lensman is one of them.
And i believe Discover has something like less than 5% of the market. But i am doing a little to increase that. In the past year sold almost 1000 new discover accounts.
what about charge2000.com ?
I only see CEN using them on everysite. I know from my own trials that did add some more revenue.
slavdogg
05-22-2003, 11:12 PM
and whatever happened with atmbilling.com ?
Hooper
05-22-2003, 11:40 PM
charge2000 seemed ok. we got them to set us up but they wouldnt post the data back to us and some various other small technical problems made them unusable.
after we told them that their solution wouldnt work as is they had the gall to send us a bill for their time involved with setup.
honestly. they have a good product. they need an english speaking technically minded rep to represent them and help deal with clients... even the brief emails i had with them were almost incoherent as english is not their first language.
atmbilling?... well that particular domain/company itself.. i think it was a casualty of war over at cen... but the concept while enchanting is much like cc processing.. it's run by a few companies that control everything. recurring billing isnt possible with it, and they are very much against the idea of somebody else getting the pin number of a consumer. you'll notice that there is not a single signatureless (telephone mail order, fill out the paper form with a signature even) atm card processor... for them signatureless doesnt exist.. if the pin # is entered, the customer made the purchase.
in the end i believe that they pulse/atm network just wont let it happen :(
HellPuppy, you are dead on right, gonzo and I have had some ongoing phone conversations about the whole situation...
There are two sides to EVERY payment method out there -- issuing and acquiring -- makes no difference if we are talking cash or magic beans or virtual first born children... you have to have end users who want to pay with the method and you have to have merchants willing to take it.
Paypal's problem is and was very simple. Their fraud control would make most of your hairs stand on end, once you got thru laughing. While I realize why they do it the way they do, adult is an animal that does not work in their setup, I can only begin to imagine what their csr's went through dealing with it.
They do some things exceptionally well and they've decided to focus on those profitable things, and expand on them. With 27 million registered users, they should be able to do alot more, but I can't blame them for focusing on what makes them money and dropping what does not...
I realize that this may be construed as biased, but here are my thoughts...
Consumers want a product and they will find a way to pay for it. Yes, credit cards are the primary payment vehicle, although it is clear that they have been losing ground for several years.
Credit cards are, in fact, credit. It is much more palatable to spend money that you do not necessarily have to repay immediately. The world is a credit driven society, especially in the US which is the major consumer base.
Every credit card holder in the US has a checking account. There are also 10's of millions of ppl in the US that do not have a credit card but do have a checking account.
BTW, regarding ATM billing, here is a similar solution and the story...
Currently, there is a product that allows a merchant at the POS to verify and perform a real-time debit via a checking or savings account.
However, there are two current snags:
1 - It is not scheduled to be released for non face-to-face transactions until later this year.
2 - It is dependent on the banks to code up to the initiative. Currently, it is only a handful of the top e-draw banks, so the coverage is well below 50% of the DDA accounts in the US.
The difference between this product and the ATM billing idea is that this one is real and that it will not remove the revocation rights of the consumer (as a PIN code does with an ATM card).
It will be a method to verify accounts and funds availability, as well as perform a real-time debit.
Rest assured that WTS will be offering this to our merchants as soon as it is available!
RawAlex
05-23-2003, 09:57 AM
The end of "recurring" billing wouldn't be the end of the adult membership sites, quite the opposite. I think you would see more sites offer a 2 - 3 month membership in the $60 range, with a webmaster payout in the $25-$30 range. I can also see sites going to a one time, $9.95 for a week type thing, with a $3 or so webmaster payout.
The internet in general and adult business in particular looks at these issues as a "network problem" and will find routes around it. There is huge demand for porn, enough people willing to pay, etc.
Alex
Hooper
05-23-2003, 11:24 AM
thats a great idea alex cept that when you cross the $40.00 threshhold on billing your chargebacks skyrocket.
If a VBV type system was in place then you would see something similar I bet.
gonzo
05-23-2003, 01:07 PM
Originally posted by *KK*@May 22 2003, 11:44 PM
HellPuppy, you are dead on right, gonzo and I have had some ongoing phone conversations about the whole situation...
There are two sides to EVERY payment method out there -- issuing and acquiring -- makes no difference if we are talking cash or magic beans or virtual first born children... you have to have end users who want to pay with the method and you have to have merchants willing to take it.
Paypal's problem is and was very simple. Their fraud control would make most of your hairs stand on end, once you got thru laughing. While I realize why they do it the way they do, adult is an animal that does not work in their setup, I can only begin to imagine what their csr's went through dealing with it.
They do some things exceptionally well and they've decided to focus on those profitable things, and expand on them. With 27 million registered users, they should be able to do alot more, but I can't blame them for focusing on what makes them money and dropping what does not...
One thing is for sure -- Im interested to see what ePassporte is going to be when it grows up. Im kinda on Wig's side of thinking that people will find a way to pay if you offer them alternatives.
Im going to test that theory out with a cheap content site and see just how many webmasters will go the extra step get bother with getting that card in order to buy the cheap stuff. My guess is that it will create a landslide of email asking me why I dont take pay pal or use a regular credit card processor.
I hope Kimmy and that crew over there finds a way to give webmasters incentives to do more than use them on a p2p/b2b basis. I still think...as biased as it is that there is a huge opening for a prepaid card for the industry. Fuck having a MC or a Visa logo on it.
I dont know if there is a way you can "ride the processing rails" without putting those logos on the cards... I do know that there is a way around that too. Matter of fact I think Hell Puppy has that half of the deck.
Dianna Vesta
05-23-2003, 05:28 PM
Is someone creating "MasterPorn" card? lol
Why the hell not? I know I've said this before on another rant & the same people were in the thread.
If the CC companies get any worst then this, any more 3 party people pull the plug, we're not going to have a choice.
There was a lame program around called Token Systems. Well in the future it might not be so lame after all.
CC are good because for the most part their global. As long as someone has one they can purchase credits, tokens or anything esle. Reminds me of the BBS days when they wouldn't issue us credit cards. Not in the begining anyhow. You had to wait for checks AND a copy of driver license. You had to do the SAME damn thing with videos and magazines. It didn't stop people from buying LOTS of porn. I did a killer mail order business back then.
Finally they allowed BBS's to accept credit cards and a company called Logicom was the first to provide software to process real time transactions for membership access. That company became Ibill. No shit.
Hell Puppy
05-23-2003, 08:21 PM
Originally posted by Dianna Vesta@May 23 2003, 04:36 PM
Is someone creating "MasterPorn" card? lol
Why the hell not? I know I've said this before on another rant & the same people were in the thread.
The trust issue has to be resolved. The users wisely do not trust most adult entertainment entities for good reason. If you strip mine, it's a long time before you can grow trees again!
If you solve the business and tech issues, to get the users to accept a card like that it would need to have some name recognition. Playboy or maybe Hustler could pull off branding a card...especially if the transaction partner on the back end was also someone respected from the financial or tech side.
Finally they allowed BBS's to accept credit cards and a company called Logicom was the first to provide software to process real time transactions for membership access. That company became Ibill. No shit.
Way back when, my first processor in those days was "TeleFlora". Same company that processed for most of the florists nationwide. It wasn't automated unless you cared to write your own code, it was at least electronic as compared to some of the others who wanted you to sit on the phone and do it all with touch tones.
Some genius there saw some extra money in providing processing to BBS operators and other non-face-to-face merchants. Most florist transactions are done over the phone, so they were used to not having a card to swipe. But they eventually stopped taking adult and then ultimately went back to exclusively dealing with florists.
Just another blast from the past...
One thing is for certain though, people will always pay for porn, but the more convenient it is, the more will do so. We made money back in the day having people mail in checks and money orders for manual processing. But business jumped tenfold or better when we went to credit cards and instant gratification.
gonzo
05-26-2003, 11:07 AM
Originally posted by Dianna Vesta@May 23 2003, 01:36 PM
Is someone creating "MasterPorn" card? lol
Why the hell not? I know I've said this before on another rant & the same people were in the thread.
If the CC companies get any worst then this, any more 3 party people pull the plug, we're not going to have a choice.
There was a lame program around called Token Systems. Well in the future it might not be so lame after all.
CC are good because for the most part their global. As long as someone has one they can purchase credits, tokens or anything esle. Reminds me of the BBS days when they wouldn't issue us credit cards. Not in the begining anyhow. You had to wait for checks AND a copy of driver license. You had to do the SAME damn thing with videos and magazines. It didn't stop people from buying LOTS of porn. I did a killer mail order business back then.
Finally they allowed BBS's to accept credit cards and a company called Logicom was the first to provide software to process real time transactions for membership access. That company became Ibill. No shit.
...I used the Dragon BBS dorr out of Maine. You gathered your transations with thier product and sent it up to them for processing. They emailed you when it was approved...usually the next day and you upgraded the users security.
In 1984, I can assure you this was considered Ultra Suave.
gonzo
05-26-2003, 11:13 AM
Originally posted by Hell Puppy+May 23 2003, 04:29 PM--></span><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td>QUOTE (Hell Puppy @ May 23 2003, 04:29 PM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteBegin--Dianna Vesta@May 23 2003, 04:36 PM
Is someone creating "MasterPorn" card? lol
Why the hell not? I know I've said this before on another rant & the same people were in the thread.
The trust issue has to be resolved. The users wisely do not trust most adult entertainment entities for good reason. If you strip mine, it's a long time before you can grow trees again!
If you solve the business and tech issues, to get the users to accept a card like that it would need to have some name recognition. Playboy or maybe Hustler could pull off branding a card...especially if the transaction partner on the back end was also someone respected from the financial or tech side.
Finally they allowed BBS's to accept credit cards and a company called Logicom was the first to provide software to process real time transactions for membership access. That company became Ibill. No shit.
Way back when, my first processor in those days was "TeleFlora". Same company that processed for most of the florists nationwide. It wasn't automated unless you cared to write your own code, it was at least electronic as compared to some of the others who wanted you to sit on the phone and do it all with touch tones.
Some genius there saw some extra money in providing processing to BBS operators and other non-face-to-face merchants. Most florist transactions are done over the phone, so they were used to not having a card to swipe. But they eventually stopped taking adult and then ultimately went back to exclusively dealing with florists.
Just another blast from the past...
One thing is for certain though, people will always pay for porn, but the more convenient it is, the more will do so. We made money back in the day having people mail in checks and money orders for manual processing. But business jumped tenfold or better when we went to credit cards and instant gratification.[/b][/quote]
And for the porn BBSes, which GonZoland was, we made them fuckers send in a copy of their drivers license. Of course they coudlnt even see that I had porn over there until they went thru the callback door. This program drapped carrier and called em back at the number they said they were at. Then it asked em for that password. If they didnt give it up they got upgraded to dickhead status.
And the dickhead status got them put in the dickhead conference where they got abused. When you was a dickhead your security level wouldnt even let you say goodbye.
Of course if you did verify and sent in that check with a copy of your dirvers license...you then got a personal call from me to tell you that we had taken your money and accepted the membership. WHat I was really doing was making sure that junior hadnt swiped daddy's credit card or check book and drivers license.
Of course all of this was double checked with the caller Id box I had.
sextoyking
05-26-2003, 01:15 PM
Dragon BBS, damm haven't heard of them in years.. We never used them, had our own accounts, but did use Logicom (ibill) for 900 billing on the bbs, people sure loved that option.
Dianna Vesta
05-26-2003, 01:15 PM
Trust is an issue but why does it have to be a card only to buy porn. Maybe a protection vehicle of some sort. It’s simply what Pay Pal does but a card you charge with a Visa or MC. Like Token Systems the surfer would need to get trained to use it. You offer it to them in clever way- Protect you billing info, etc. Give them free credits for signing up.
I don’t know, I’m dreaming. I think we’ll eventually be forced into this. I think it’s better to do it, offer incentives now and at least be ahead of the game later.
I am trying so hard to write today and my brain just won’t cooperate. I’ve got a shit load of stories and articles on deadline. I don’t get writers block that easily. Maybe I’m supposed to take the day off.
Why fight it?
gonzo
05-26-2003, 02:55 PM
Originally posted by sextoyking@May 26 2003, 09:23 AM
Dragon BBS, damm haven't heard of them in years.. We never used them, had our own accounts, but did use Logicom (ibill) for 900 billing on the bbs, people sure loved that option.
I met the lady her husband that ran that system at the OneBBSCON in Atlanta. Real nice folks...but way ahead of their time.
If I dig around here Ive probably got a payout report from em.
gonzo
05-26-2003, 03:01 PM
Originally posted by Dianna Vesta@May 26 2003, 09:23 AM
Trust is an issue but why does it have to be a card only to buy porn. Maybe a protection vehicle of some sort. It’s simply what Pay Pal does but a card you charge with a Visa or MC. Like Token Systems the surfer would need to get trained to use it. You offer it to them in clever way- Protect you billing info, etc. Give them free credits for signing up.
I don’t know, I’m dreaming. I think we’ll eventually be forced into this. I think it’s better to do it, offer incentives now and at least be ahead of the game later.
I am trying so hard to write today and my brain just won’t cooperate. I’ve got a shit load of stories and articles on deadline. I don’t get writers block that easily. Maybe I’m supposed to take the day off.
Why fight it?
It had to be a card/tangible/hard good because thats how it worked in the distribution channel that we had all arranged. Without getting into too much detail --it was necessary in oder to sell it not only to the consumer but the retailer.
As Hell Puppy and I keep saying...we worked the good part of last year on this thing from top to bottom and given the marketing plan that we developed we both feel it had/has a decent shot. Problem is you have to have investment to market the thing.
And I totally agree...you will be forced into using something like this in the future but ponder this for a sec....
We all compete essentially for the same pool of porn buyers that purchase on the web. Imagine being able to increase the size of that pie to include "NEW" buyers that cant or wont purchase porn on the web because they dont have a credit card, they dont trust a credit card or they dont want momma to know they are buying porn on the card.
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