Can ADDING a Billing Option Hurt Sales?
 

Just wondering as I'm trying out a new billing option on my tours: could this damage or hurt credit card sales?

Nothing against the billing company, they are great to work with! But I've never offered non-credit card billing options before so I'm wondering if anyone else has seen their overall credit card sales go down (or up) when they've added phone billing, SMS billing, etc?

I guess I'll find out over the next few weeks (giving it a good month to test out). :)

Depends whether or not you have an affiliate program.

Depends whether or not declined users want to try again.

Depends on a lot of things - but mostly it's doesn't matter whether or not credit card sales go down, if it's sales go UP - period.

:D

Ok well, thanks for the answer but you are, ahem, WRONG.
It's how much MONEY you make (and whether your INCOME goes UP).

In other words:

If cc sales go down but other billing sales go UP and, at the end of the day, you make more $$$ then awesome! But what I'm asking is if someone who would ordinarily buy via credit card now has "another option" and chooses that other option, thereby "leeching" cc sales (and thereby I'm making less moolah).

Capiche?

Obviously, if MORE sales from other billing options compensated for lost CC sales I wouldn't be asking, I'd just be happy with the extra moolah. :)

depending on how you implement the new options, it can definitely hurt revenue and sales. Doesn't matter if you have an affiliate program, it goes for any site anywhere.

you're joins can be $24.95 regardless of what type of payment it is, and each one will bring in a different amount of cash at the end of the day, so adding a new billing option, is only beneficial if it brings in additional sales that you would have otherwise missed.

if you introduce a billing option in the US that credit card bearing customers will choose to use instead of pulling out their cards, then you are not benefiting. If you introduce a payment option across the board that only works in 15 countries, than anyone whop sees in in other countries might try it, fail and choose not to join.

if you can determine the following
- what's the take home on a sale with this method (and compare it to others)
- does this method also offer recurring
- where does it work
- does it allow for chargebacks
- in the locations where it works, is it the primary form of online payments, or a secondary / tertiary
- what percentage of people in those territories have credit cards
- what percentage of people in those territories that have credit cards feel safe using them online.
- on what platforms is this payment type used most.

then you can really make an informed decision. Display the new option only in regions where it is popular. If if the people in that region have credit cards, still display the cc option, if the people in that region have confidence in using their cards online, display the cc option more prominently. On a desktop where there is lots of screen space, don't be afraid of offering several options (ever seen a online casinos pay page, with 24 options). If the new option is time consuming and requires a lot of input, make it even less prominent on mobile. then watch.

if your overall sales go up, good, but watch the ratio of how many additional sales you get to how many credit card sales you loose, in countries where 50+ % of people use credit cards online, you don't want to be loosing credit card sales, you only want to be capturing new sales. In countries with only like 15 to 25% of consumers using cards online, you should expect your cc sales to drop, but the sales from the more popular platforms to go up 2, 3, or even 4 X the amount your cc sales went down. then watch the bottom line.

and never compare today to yesterday, they are too different, the biggest information gathering companies in the past several decades ignore yesterday, and worry about comparing to the last day that was the same, or similar (today is a sunny Thursday in May, with little precipitation at all in north America, with a long weekend coming up for many countries, so there are 2 to 3 times the normal amount of people with the day off, tomorrow is one of the most requested days off of the spring in many countries because it is the first long weekend with nice weather, so people won't be going to bed as early tonight but many will be travelling, Basketball playoffs are on, Hockey playoffs are on, Inter league is starting in baseball this weekend, yada yada so many other factors to consider). I know I may be going overboard on the factors, but you have to consider them, our sales are way better on a cold rainy Thursday when most channels are showing reruns then they are on a sunny warm Thursday when Lebron James is playing.

I am curious about that too Peabody, as I am thinking of adding that option to 2 of my sites.

Ah ok well then a small error in wordology - true, revenue increase is more important than sales increase... I suppose.

A partial answer is - depends on your market? You would get more SMS sales in Romania than in the US, for example... In Europe Credit Cards aren't as common as in other "western" countries...

So what's your market?

:D

One of the best written most intelligent and helpful posts I have seen in nearly ten years on GFY.

Read no further because this says it all.

I was about to write the same thing. :2 cents:

No problem with wordology, I can barely write or speak English. LOL My "market" is about 50% European so I thought adding SMS billing etc would be good in countries that don't have or use credit cards as often as Americans do.

But THIS is really the quote of the day/week/year:


Thank you for taking the time to write sucn an informative response! Many of the points you mentioned have been considered but I don't think "tested" or "analized" as well as you did in your post.

It's the bit about other countries' credit card useage which is the most helpful, I think. Sales 'trends' are indeed tricky, and I often factor in "real world events" like sports, Holidays, etc into why some weeks are better than others....

But I will watch results VERY closely. I don't think I could go more than a month tho if the trend I am seeing (decreased cc sales) continues....:)

online checks are a waste of money. Go hit any rap forum etc & they will tell you that's how to beat paysites. Wts & ccbill have been bad for us. Unless you get your own merch for checks & cross sell the fuck out of them you have a password leak
ds

Just wondering... if you have more than one credit card processor and you have an affiliate program, the best idea is to set a program like NATS?

Because I have seen some paysites with two billing options and no program to manage the cascading, thus, the affiliates could only signup with one of the processors, if the visitor joined with the other processor, the affiliate did not credit for that sale.

So, more than 1 processor, its recommended to use a cascading soft like nats, right?

Anyone with any traffic from Europe at all that isn't offering SMS payment, or general phone payment is leaving a lot of money on the table.

Americans seem to think everyone in the world has a credit card, and has one they are happy to use to buy porn on. This isn't the case.

CCBill + Epoch for debit cards + SMS billing == more money.

At least, in my experience.

If the one collecting your funds is in worse financial shape than you are....then you will see drastic,sharp,continual reductions in sales regardless of your efforts of tripling traffic, tripling affiliates, adding new content...

its a 500 pound elephant that is in the room, that many can see but out of fear none dare speak ill of the elephant....

This post needs to be bumped above Zimmerman and silly debates about 1920s economic theories.

Indeed! Let's do it again. :)

Add as many as you can. Online payments are no longer the future. Mobile billing is happening already and is already a huge, open market, worth billions...