Visa Says Bye Bye to Cross Sales

[RawAlex]

Originally Posted by Far-L

I don't think anyone will be going out of biz but it could be putting a freeze on some business as usual shenanigans...

Far-l, don't you think that groups that were snapping up older, worn down programs in a hurry were not in the process of setting up their cross bill empires? Do you not think they were careful to keep existing corporate / company structures in place for each of these properties rather than merging them, which in turn allows them to obtain merchant accounts for each of these "separate" programs, all the while operating them together with a common purpose?

There are plenty of programs purchased and operating today that haven't have a single piece of new content in years, yet can magically pay $100 per signup without issue? With a $29.99 or whatever pricetag, do you honestly think they are recurring 4 months to even allow them to break even?

The only way they stay in business (and keep getting tons of traffic) is by being able to make huge payouts. Those huge payouts only happen when they can manage to make more than the payout amount up front. So the $29.99 site needs at least 3 or 4 pre-checks to make enough income to pay the bills. Remove the cross bills, and suddenly these sites will actually have to retain to make money. It's doubtful that people will be lining up for sites that haven't been updated in years. They might make a few sales, but not many.

if they drop the payouts to reasonable levels, their conversions need to improve dramatically or they aren't worth it. 1 in 5000 on a $1000 program beats 1 in 2000 on a $35 per signup site. But when the drop to paying out $35 a signup and are still converting at 1 in 5000, they will rapidly drop off of people's lists.

Like I said, my feeling is that you will see many of those "old" programs that were rescued seemingly only to support a cross bill empire end up closing out, mostly because they won't want to put the money back into them to make them functional businesses at only 20% of the income levels.

[Far-L]

Originally Posted by RawAlex

Far-l, don't you think that groups that were snapping up older, worn down programs in a hurry were not in the process of setting up their cross bill empires? Do you not think they were careful to keep existing corporate / company structures in place for each of these properties rather than merging them, which in turn allows them to obtain merchant accounts for each of these "separate" programs, all the while operating them together with a common purpose?

There are plenty of programs purchased and operating today that haven't have a single piece of new content in years, yet can magically pay $100 per signup without issue? With a $29.99 or whatever pricetag, do you honestly think they are recurring 4 months to even allow them to break even?

The only way they stay in business (and keep getting tons of traffic) is by being able to make huge payouts. Those huge payouts only happen when they can manage to make more than the payout amount up front. So the $29.99 site needs at least 3 or 4 pre-checks to make enough income to pay the bills. Remove the cross bills, and suddenly these sites will actually have to retain to make money. It's doubtful that people will be lining up for sites that haven't been updated in years. They might make a few sales, but not many.

if they drop the payouts to reasonable levels, their conversions need to improve dramatically or they aren't worth it. 1 in 5000 on a $1000 program beats 1 in 2000 on a $35 per signup site. But when the drop to paying out $35 a signup and are still converting at 1 in 5000, they will rapidly drop off of people's lists.

Like I said, my feeling is that you will see many of those "old" programs that were rescued seemingly only to support a cross bill empire end up closing out, mostly because they won't want to put the money back into them to make them functional businesses at only 20% of the income levels.

lol, and I am sure you are not talking about any A,B,C or Dee company out there... so let's just establish that first.

I agree with where you are going with that and word winging on the wind did say some big names would shutter up, but those kind of "amalgam of programs previously purchased" programs should never be doubted for their ability to exploit loopholes. All the merchant bank blacklists, negative legislation, and of course the evil tubes in the world are not about to change that.

[RawAlex]

Originally Posted by Far-L

lol, and I am sure you are not talking about any A,B,C or Dee company out there... so let's just establish that first.

I agree with where you are going with that and word winging on the wind did say some big names would shutter up, but those kind of "amalgam of programs previously purchased" programs should never be doubted for their ability to exploit loopholes. All the merchant bank blacklists, negative legislation, and of course the evil tubes in the world are not about to change that.

I do agree. Some of the sites I am thinking have dropped the cross sales, but have shifted the default membership selection on their join page to one time, high dollar 6 month or 1 year memberships. I looked at one site (old solo girl site) that was set to $80 for a 6 month membership. While that isn't a really high price, it is pretty much the same net money as 3+ months of recurring, which most programs can't pull off. Certainly an amateur site that is recycling old content isn't going to see that sort of recur very often.

At the end of the day, the real rewards appear to be for the companies that continue to turn out fresh content, new sites, maybe even new concepts (or at least recycle concepts that are old enough to be new again). Those programs continue to generate real long term business that will allow the program owners (and webmasters promoting them) to make money for a long time to come.