Blaming the biller for your low sales is a mistake.
 

There are entirely too may threads on GFY by site owners blaming the biller for their low sales. Instead of answering yet another one I thought I would start a new thread and try to end this ridiculous argument.

Here's the problem:

A site owner will see his sales drop, and then blame the biller he uses. He will attempt to prove his theory through one wild idea or another without any real evidence. He may then switch billing providers, see his sales go up, and then use that as proof that his original biller sucked.

This way of thinking assumes that the billing processor is the only variable in your business, or the only thing that makes or breaks a sale.

In reality there are dozens of factors that affect a person's ability or willingness to sign-up to your site. Such as:

- Did your traffic drop?
- Did the source of your traffic change?
- Did you lose an affiliate?
- Are there any other influences in the world that might affect peoples interest in buying your porn today?
- Do you have a new competitor?
- Are competitors taking away your traffic by more competitive advertising?

Assuming after all of the above you get a potential customer to your site:

- Is he a real person, or a bot? (Let's assume the click we're talking about is a real person)
- Does he like your content?
- Was your banner add relevant to your actual content?
- Does he like your site?
- Does your site do a good enough job to SELL to your client?
- Does he have a credit card?
- Can he purchase right now? (Are their friends or family around preventing him from doing so?)
- Is he distracted by other ads?
- Is your site giving him other choices? (Other ads, products or links luring him away?)
- Is he in the mood?

Lets assume YES to ALL of the above. This guy is a prime candidate. Next:

- Is your site too expensive?
- Does he have room on his credit card?
- Will he enter the right card information during his purchase?


Now HERE is where MAYBE you can begin to wonder if the card company of your choice is what you want it to be:

- Will the fraud scrub accept a wrong street address?
- Bad CVV2?

Alot of inexperienced site owners also automatically assume that every click to their site is a potential client and they base this information on whatever their stats program tells them. This again is far from the truth. Of course alot of people buy filtered traffic but still, alot of the traffic can be from:

- Bots
- Foreign Countries / unqualified customers
- Hotlinks (banners, photos, etc)

And finally, though you may hate to admit it, alot of those clicks will be from people who:
- Are just surfers with no intention of buying
- Freeloaders who comb your site for new tours but have no intention of buying
- Other webmasters who steal your content and have no intention of buying.

A quick count of all of the above might reveal that the billing provider is responsible for 3.5% of the total picture of the reasons why you may not make a sale but even this is wrong because the billing processor is most likely to accept the transaction from a qualified customer. This is why I saw that people who blame their processors for low sales are bad for their own business.

If your sales suck, here are a few things you can do:

- Check your stats very carefully and try to tie various sources of traffic to conversions. Done right, you will see what sources of traffic work for you and which ones do not. You may have 1 or more affiliates sending you poor quality traffic.

- And speaking of affiliates, check to see if any affiliates seem to have alot of declines or chargebacks associated with the traffic they are sending you. Double-check with your billing processor's sales rep for some advice on the issue and consider dropping any affiliates who is responsible, or at least talk to that affiliate.

- Invite feedback from your customers. Add a "No thanks" button to your site's join page and have a form to ask customers why they didn't sign up. Or even better, ask them what you could do to earn their business. Don't talk to customers like they're idiots. Ask some real questions and you will find that alot of people want to tell you what they are looking for.

- Is your site full of pop-ups and ads? (Chances are, it is, and no wonder you get low sales).

You might try reaching out to other webmasters in a similar niche and see if they can offer you some advice to grow your business. Trashing the processor and ignoring all other possibilities isn't the way.

And finally after all of the above you still feel like being lazy and blaming the processor, just add another processor already. For most membership sites it is fairly easy to do. Don't bitch about the MC and Visa Fees either - they are a cost of doing business. Furthermore it is a small investment to make and it is tax deductible anyway so stop crying and do it.

P e a c e.

If you complain to zombaio about late payments they will can your account.

That is a fact jack and therefore can argue that third party processors certainly affect sales.

But to comment on what you wrote, third party billers suck really bad man. I set up a new account a couple months ago and my card was straight up flagged! Shut down, could not use card again until I called my bank the next day and had them unblock it.

Hope you think about that for a few.

Am I at CozyFrog and it's 2003? Please say yes, the past 10 years have been a nightmare!

**********, one question: do you run an affiliate program?

Even if you do, you are still full of shit.

Tell me, who's fault is it when this happens overnight? No traffic change, none of the other bullshit from your list. Just go from 1:500 ratio to 0:9000 overnight. Who's fault is it other than the middle man's?

http://clip2net.com/clip/m84465/1371...-clip-12kb.png

Nice stats regardless :)

Marcus Aurelius - may be it is not right time and thread to tell, but your stats make me feel better. Porn is not dead. Yet.

I find the mornings slower then usual in the summer, picks up later in the day. Seems like just half way through the day lately. Also your join submits seem lower then average too

So while unlikely, I've had days start off very slow like that lately but by bedtime are back to normal

Ave, M. Aurelius Augustus Princeps,

Nice stats; but how exactly would a biller affect sales in that way and why? How would it benefit them?

Something went to shit on the middle men side. Processor or billing could go down. Bank could fuck something up. Someone could try to balance chargebacks.

All I know if that it had nothing to do with traffic or all the other nonsense that MarkPrice wrote. There are fluctuations on the day to day basis that could be attributed to surfer behavior, but when there are glaring breaks like that you just know that the middle men are fucking things up.

There doesn't have to be a benefit. It may not be intentional. They may be missing steps along their own process and not fixing those steps. We all see companies that do not fix their own problems. Beating a dead horse here: CCBill stats/admin, a problem for years that has never been fixed. What other problems are not getting fixed?

It is my opinion that expecting any company to be operating at 100% at all times is extremely naïve. If something seems funny, start shopping. Start researching. Start investigating. See what others are doing.

Processor A and Processor B are not the same. Gateway A and Gateway B are not the same.

Amen halleleujah, and boom shocka locka!

We see the exact same bull shit ratios that defy logic and reason and mark prince has no answer for that because mark prince is disconnected from reality.

NSA scandals everywhere, spying, lying, easedropping, harrassment, all the corrupt stuff in the world all around us, but MArk Prince wants you to believe adult billing companies are 100% on the up and up.....:1orglaugh:1orglaugh:1orglaugh:1orglaugh:1o rglaugh:1orglaugh

To add on to what Beaner said what does mark prince no about approval declines?????
:1orglaugh:1orglaugh:1orglaugh:1orglaugh:1orglaugh :1orglaugh:1orglaugh:1orglaugh

Should I be blaming my traffic and affiliates for approval declines????

:1orglaugh:1orglaugh:1orglaugh:1orglaugh

US doesn't start really buying till 10am PST

Being someone who actually runs an affiliate program and has 32 paysites (and counting) let me clue Mark Prince in here:

Billers can play a MAJOR role in sales. A webmaster can only control what is on HIS SERVERS, anything else and he is at the mercy of many factors, including billers. But Sly is also correct: it may not be intentional.

Most billers - this is my belief now - most billers do what they must do to stay in business and keep the majority of their clients happy. This means, on some days, Visa or MC may put limits on billers, or if it's a Holiday and a lot of cc activity is expected in mainstream, adult gets 'suppressed' being more high risk for that day. On and on it goes.

But Marcus Aurelius is also correct: when none of the other factors change (traffic, time on site, etc) then one must look at things one does NOT have control over, like billers.

No conspiracy here, just reality.

(Hope you're also promoting PeabodyCash stuff Marcus!!!)

you guys are swirlsgirl's wet dream

Hi Marcus, just to make sure I am reading your stats correctly: It looks to me like You had a decrease in sales of 21% from June 11th to June 12th. Is this right? Because you had a decrease in sales volume of almost the same thing : 19.35%.

Is this an anomaly? No not according to the same screenshot. From June 9th to the 10th you had a decrease in sales of 10%, and a decrease of sales volume of almost the same thing : 9.09%.

In other words, the rate of sales change is almost exactly the same as the volume change and therefore your biller is probably consistent.

(Again, assuming I am reading your stats correctly - you didn't include the headers).

how often do fraud checks stop legit sales from happening? I'd be willing to bet a lot.

That may not be "proof" but it sure sounds like evidence.

SwirlsGirl:

If you have real proof that a billing processor is ripping you off, you should post the proof here in this thread.

You can find out: Look at your list of declines and then call the card holders yourself (don't email them).

When you call, don't say right away that you are joe blow from porn company x. Instead tell your client that you are checking up on recent transactions and that you are looking to protect his identity and make sure no one stole his card.

If the card holder was the one who tried to make the purchase and his card is in good standing, you might be able to ask your processor to relax the scrub rules for this customer at which time you can invite him to sign up again. If you have alot of declines for the wrong reasons, your processor definitely wants to know and may relax the rules for your site in general for all customers.

Good topic....

My 2cents

Problems with a processors systems, slow servers, connectivity issues, bank connection issues etc, can certainly effect sales.

However, on this board, so many of you are constantly complaining about scrubbing, late payouts and variables that you cannot control unless you take more control of your processing and while so many of you have, many of you don't and just keep complaining about it. Every processor has its good and bad qualities including NETbilling.

I have a ton of respect for much that our competitors have accomplished such as Segpay, Commercegate, Epoch and CCbill and even Verotel plus others. However, if you put everything in the hands of a third party processor then you are accepting their role which is that they control everything.

If you want more control and flexibility over your processing and finances, then take it!!

Mitch

With respect to you Mark Prince posting in this thread is not the place to air it out....additionally there will be a handful like yourself that will try and defend what is indefensible.

WHy do you think I talk as I do, because I know what I know, and I have seen what I need to see to speak this way.

I don't say anyone is ripping me off, I say it amazes me when a middle man/ cheesy rat is caught red handed in the act of approval declines and some one like you who is in total awe and reverance of middle men would prefer to lecture the industry about how there traffic is the primary reason for sales fluctuations and false stats reporting!

The same cheesy rat middle men who gives you false stats wants you to believe your payouts are 100% accurate when the reported sales stats have been 50% inaccurate

It is also very strange to have 2 days a week for the past 3 months of 0 sales days.

Even when one of those 0 sales days is precede by a 1/200 conversion ratio....then the very next day its 0 but you see plenty of join form hits....

MArk Prince why do you insist the industry is so stupid that they cannot read and interpret their own sales data....why do you assume that only certified fraud analysts can detect fraud from reading stats??

Why do you feel the need to personally defend with such tenacity every question directed towards shady middle men practices?

read-a-book-on-statistics.gif

edit: as ********** said, just give your declined customers a call posing as a fraud prevention person. See what they have to say

I'm just outraged by Mike's (retarded) position that affiliates are the only ones responsible for shitty sales. I've been hearing this constant stream of bullshit year after year from retarded affiliate reps blaming dead sales on my traffic, holidays, summer slowdown, the fucking moon phase and whatnot.

Bottom line is, middle men affect your sales. A lot.

CC processors, gateways, banks, 3rd parties like ccbill - all of them screw up from time to time for various reasons.