Why Offer Rebills At All?
 

Would it not make sense to offer surfers a longer length membership for a higher price and not have to worry about rebills etc?

For example, trial option @ 5 bucks plus a rebill 2 or 3 days later at 30 bucks..

Thats a max of 35 bucks before the surfer decides your members area is shit potentially that is, if they dont figure it out after the first hour.

Using this method you are guaranteed to lose money whichever way you look at it however...

Lets say there is no trial option but a membership length of 12 months for $100

You make $100 instantly and payuot 50% of that to your affiliate making you an additional income of 15 bucks on the trial / monthly option.

Why do so many affiliate programs rely on rebills when they can satisfy both their bank account and the account of their affiliate by offering a higher longer membership price point?

$50 payouts could become the norm in the not so distant future for all paysite owners :2 cents:

Best of all, if a surfer couldnt find any trial options on any paysite they would have to pull out the CC and spend that $100 to jerk off.

Regards,

Lee

$100.00 is an un-chartered price point I think.

edit - Some sponsors, including us, do offer a 2 month option which is a little better.

Its not to far off what affiliate programs were charging 5 or 6 years ago for a 3-6 month access.

Regards,

Lee

I'm not disagreeing with the thought, just with the cheap or free content out there now it's tougher to sell the higher price in most cases.

What do you think the ratios are going to be like with a $100 join fee?

If everyone changed to that billing method exactly the same as they are now because surfers wouldnt have any other options :2 cents:

Regards,

Lee

worse then asian hitbot traffic

Check out the join up page on my sites.
Look at the drop bar for price options:thumbsup

Because people lack the common sense to innovate, and just do what they have seen other people do. That and greed hoping the rebills roll in due to members forgetting to cancel.

Fact of life, men don't like too much commitment. Offer them a higher priced membership non recurring and bling bling.

Unless of course you have a really kickass site priced right, good content and worthy of staying a member. Then again you can still offer multiple options.

How many guys would actually pay a monthly membership fee to go to a strip club?

$100 / 6 months = $16.66 membership cost a month.

Thats cheaper than 99% of monthly paysite membership costs now.

Regards,

Lee

Price fixing conspiracy is illegal in the USA.

or they can pay for a 3day trial and archive the whole site
how many sales rebill more then 2-3times? 1/4 at best

Thats exactly my point :1orglaugh

You wouldnt have to worry about who did and who didnt rebill if you offered higher price points because that consideration would become moot. You make all your $$$ in one go at the first billing.

Regards,

Lee

Nah check it out. Just pay affiliates $20 or $25 per join as per usual.

Then if a surfer stays for 5 days, send them an email offer to buy a 90 day or 6 month or 1 yr. membership at a discount from the normal monthly rate. (pro-rated as well of course)

my point is if people were required to pay $100 for porn they'd buy a couple dvds they could own forever or go with stealing it via kazaa
make it affordable to most people and you'll make more sales

Exact reason why trials are a bad idea. Especially for porn. But I would do the same exact thing. Why pay a bunch of money when you can get it for free or practically nothing?

I can't wait til all the crappy overpriced paysites that suck go out of business.

you dont think they already do this?

I think there should be different options, because surfers (people) and websites are different.

Some people have the money, and do not care how much it cost. Some people have less, and wants trial before they decide.
Some people have no money, signup for trial, grab it all, and decide not to be member after trial (not just a question of the websites quality).
Some people get tired of the website, and want to try another sites instead.

most are crappy or overpriced or both
you have to offer people more then picture sets updated everyweek and a new video once a month

Now read what you wrote again and explain why having a single price point for all 4 of the reasons you posted would be a VERY good thing.

Regards,

Lee

I never said that I thought nobody already does this sort of thing :winkwink:

Quite the opposite I'd say.

I'd love to have some links in some "Please dont leave!" type cancel emails, lol.

Many members feel that $30.00 is more than expensive to join a site; though we have an optional $99.00 for 5 months.

Depends on your content, true, if you have a shit members area, then it doesn't really matter as much; but as least in our case, our rebills are higher than our daily sales. Also do not forget that at least 5-10% of signups they forget to cancel or are too lazy to, or simply forget.

Actually, I know of a site that charges like 100 to 200 dollars to get in, they have some stuff you would never think you would ever see. But the question was about why not more people. One if you upped your price right now to 100 dollars, you would see people laughing, some would be curious why it was 100 dollars, after they buy the membership, and then compare it to other sites they are members to, they would just charge it back, or ask for a refund, and I believe paycom considers refunds of mastercard transactions the same as chargebacks so basically you are shooting yourself in the foot. Two, the industry would never agree to it, they are in competition with one another, one to maximize signups, and to maximize payouts to webmasters, so in maintaining this balance they are moving to more of a PlatinumRevenue model where webmasters get paid on signups, and recurring, so one customer that retains they make 20 dollars on the initial and then 50%, 60% 70% on the recurring depending on how much consistent traffic they send.

We offer 29.99 30days reoccuring
64.95 90days one time
99.99 180days one time

no trials, we mostly sell the 29.99 option
we sell a good amount of the 64.95 option
and few of the 99.99 option

What happens when you pay the affiliate his $50 during the first month, only to watch the chargebacks roll in 2 months later?

This pricing model is ripe for friendly fraud, isn't it?

Thats why you dont alter the payout to an affiliate. You just get the upsell in house so you can breath a little.

So affiliate programs start to chase surfers who issue 'friendly' chargebacks just as a regular bricks and mortar store would.

Friendly or not, theft is still theft, they got what they paid for.

Regards,

Lee

We have been doing very good with it. Of corse we get a cb every now and then , but for the most part they are few and far between. ( now that I said that they will probably roll in- lol)

OK, here is the smartest way to get as much porn as possible:

Sign up for 3 day trial, let say 5 dollars. If 6 months membership cost 50 dollars, why should I pay 50 dollars? I could sign up again for trial after 6 months and grab all the updates from last time...for 10 dollars.
If I act like this, I could change between several sites and their trials, signing up months later to get their updates :winkwink:

However, I do not tell my surfers this trick :1orglaugh

As I said, people have more or less money. One site I promote, I get 4-5 signups per month, at 150 dollars for one year membership. Cool enough, but not all people have 150 dollars to spend on porn in one buy. And somehow, rebills "sounds" cheaper, because you do not pay one big amount of money. It's like everything else, just look at the companies selling TVs etc on credits. You pay smaller amount at the time, but in total it will be more expensive, that's right.

Everyone should have access to porn!

would you mind posting the site?

uh, lol

You dont have to tell surfers this it is already being done by them :1orglaugh

Many surfers will join on a trial and download all the porn they can get then cancel.

By having a higher monthly no trial option only this will cut such practises down.

Also, once their rebill period has expired why not add them to a temporary blacklist for the individual site so that after say, another 6 months has passed, they can rejoin the site if they want to.

In the mean time if they want to find more porn they have to join yet another site at full cost whereby they will begin to realize that cancelling their membership originally probably wasnt the best thing to :2 cents:

Regards,

Lee

there are ways to get around this that i havent see anyone do yet...

Non-recurring is very popular among experienced surfers = majority of surfers in 2004.

Out of those who joined a paysite once in the past 5 years, I bet 50% had a lot of hassles when trying to cancel their membership

Well, I don't think too many people will shell out $100 for a website he may or may not like.

I also forsee people charging back a great deal...when they get inside and decide that they don't think they are getting their moneys worth. People pay 5 bucks and don't like it...it is "oh well" and they don't renew...(some assholes even charge back). Pay $100 bucks and it would be charge-back city.

Then you have the people that WOULD pay the $100 but simply can't afford to lay out that much money at once...like the guy who make 7 bucks an hour...he may retain at a $20 or $25 buck website but to come up with that much cash at once...no way.

"Most" of them wouldn't care to chargeback for smaller amounts, but for $100 they would definitely request refund or cargeback... :2 cents:

Thats why affiliate programs should start acting like a 'real' business.

If you went to a DVD store, purchased a DVD, watched it and decided you didnt like the movie and charged back, what do you think would happen to you?

Its illegal, they call it fraud. Why is buying a paysite membership any different?

Regards,

Lee

By "friendly fraud" -- I'm referring to affiliates who bang signups to you with fraudulent cards, to get the big payouts.

if you're POOR and want a dvd player you make small payments you can afford. thats why poor people in trailers have big screen tvs and soundsystems. they cant afford cash upfront but they can make the monthly payments

Yes, it will work for some targeted markets, but not all. Think of it: many of those doing such trial-cancel practise may not have the money, so why not let them do it? One trial is better than nothing at all.
And: The higher prices/denying people access, could lead to more hacking, sharing of passes/content. That's another side of it.

Well the processors should be to blame for this not the paysite owners.

Afterall its the processors who let these fraudulent transactions get past thier scrubbing methods :2 cents:

I realize this isnt how it works now but it should do and nothing will be done about it until the entire industry starts to persue fraudulent chargebacks that have been made by surfers who actually do visit the sites as well as by those individuals who have had their CC's used by dishonest affiliate programs.

Why dont we hear more about affiliate programs reporting fraudulent webmasters to the authorities? Most likely because they are scared at what will happen to them in the process.

Unfortunately it is a vicious circle that isnt going to end until something starts to be done about the problems.

Prosecute the fuckers, i dont think there is a country in the word where credit card fraud isnt a crime.

Regards,

Lee

Completely agree with this, who doesnt? The CC companies calling it friendly fraud on their end, giving the money back to the card holder, then fining YOU is a horrible thing. It would never fly where you have a physical signature, and it shouldnt fly in the all digital world either.

I think there are some other factors.

In your sample DVD is a tangible item but paysite offers just a "service". Also, as pointed out billers always taking a side on card holders when it comes to paysites. So they can easily claim "x paysite didn't fullfill their promises" or "I didn't like the site" and get a refund.

I even had a customer who get's a refund through processor after staying as member for two months and downloading GB's of stuff. Just because his account suspended by protection script for one day(account shared).
:feels-hot

Stores have the customers signature for the creditcard transactions. That is the difference between them. That is also the difference between a mail order merchant account. That is why when someone charges back on a mail order account, the company is notified and they can show proof of the person signature.

How about the people who signup for the account use it for like 3 months and then email you complaining that their kid got their creditcard and purchased all this porn.

Well there is no proof of the transaction, and the adult community messed itself up when a few people had the great idea to bang peoples creditcards several times, and run for the borders with all their money.

We have a $99.95 option for 6 months.

It is a discount from the normal $19.95/month

We get about a dozen $99 signups a day.
Our affiliates love them!

Affiliates get paid half - $49.97

http://www.HowIgotRich.com

$1,000 webmaster bonuses for 2004

Nobody wants to pay $100 up front for a porn membership, especially if they have never seen the members area yet... only idiots would want that option.

35% of my signups are the 3 month 69.95 signups non recurr

I would just offere the surfer serveral options. or move to the mircopayment system.