What are people in the industries view of pre-checked cross sells and forced trials on the join page of a website? I am in the midst of a debate on ethics of this type of revenue generation.
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What are people in the industries view of pre-checked cross sells and forced trials on the join page of a website? I am in the midst of a debate on ethics of this type of revenue generation.
You cant do pre-checked cross sales anymore unless you have a way of seperating Visa sales from MasterCard sales.
Limited trials i think can be good in certain circumstances however i prefer to get a full monthly membership upfront that way i dont need to be as concerned about surfers cancelling $3 or $4 trials after raping my members areas.
Regards,
Lee
They are slimy at the very best, and outright theft in my opinion! And we wonder why consumers don't trust online adult business'! It's an embarassment to the entire adult industry!Quote:
Originally Posted by PornPaparazzi
Exactly.Quote:
Originally Posted by Titanmen
i think a lot of website visitors check the join pages for this stuff these days i know when i join a new site i always make sure that im not being scammed by the owner
A lot of them may but our customer base must always be growing and we must never support nor encourage those who would damage the reputation of all adult sites with shady billing or subscription practices.Quote:
Originally Posted by Rich
In the long term, it hurts each of us.
Alex,Quote:
Originally Posted by Alex_Manifest_M
99.99% of sites doing this are PPS sponsors and a lot of those in the industry (gay and straight) promote them.
There is a reason why a PPS sponsor can offer $50+ payouts on a $1.99 or 'free' trial option and it isnt just because of cross-sells.
IMHO there are much shadier practices going on that we should be concerned about than cross sells on join pages, pre-checked or not $0.02
The unfortunate thing about cross-sells is that they actually do have a legitimate place in the industry but the same old sponsors that fucked everything else up for the industry abused these as a way of bilking hundreds of dollars out of the surfer, because affiliates wanted to be paid $50+ per sale for a 'free' or $1 trial.
Have you noticed how all of the practices that are looked down upon over the past 5 years have all been used regularly and abused by PPS sponsors... Not those of us running paysites on revshare where we need to ensure our members areas are able to retain members?
Instead of trying to change the fact that cross-sells are used in the industry, we need to be trying to change the mindset that using leased content alone, the same feeds and content in multiple members areas and filling a members area with nothing but upsells is the way to go when running an adult paysite, not only for program owners but for the affiliates promoting these sites offering $50+ per sale because ultimately, until affiliates start dropping these programs en mass, nothing is going to change.
I saw a thread a couple of days ago on another board where several PPS program owners were discussing what they could do to off-set the fact they lost cross-sells, some of the suggestions were absolutely brilliant (in their deviousness, such as changing a monthly membership down to 20 days instead of 30 and billing the same member twice in the same month) but at the same time, would hurt the surfer more than cross-sells would if they remained.
Sometimes it really is a case of 'better the devil you know'.
Regards,
Lee
Through shady and our right unethical practices the adult industry is biting the hand that feeds them every day. None of them are acceptable and should not be accepted. As long as affiliates and other sponsor support any of these shady practices, we can expect to continue to be dealt with as crooks by many customers. We were discussing this particular issue. There are certainly others which should be eliminated as well. For instance, unscrupulous dvd producers who place models on box covers that are not even featured on the disc. The list goes on and on.Quote:
Originally Posted by Lee
I expect there will always be those who abuse the customer base while the rest of us are trying to expand it. I do not believe they should be supported. Anyone who accepts the little breaches in ethics should be willing to accept the big ones as well.
Alex,
Cross sells arent just a phenomenon in the adult industry though, almost EVERY major company uses them, or has done.
GoDaddy for example, unless you 'uncheck' things when registering domains with them, will add hosting packages, privacy packages, multiple TLD registrations, etc, to your order.
As i said, in and of themselves, cross-sells are not a bad thing and actually do have a legitimate place in business, when we owned the club last year we would offer cross sells to our clients, they would order a vodka and orange for example and rather than giving them a single shot, we'd give them a double (and charge them $2 more for it), we'd also offer upsells, instead of well vodka, we'd pour Grey Goose or Stoli (and charge them $3 more for them), we'd give them the option for rebilling by not closing out their checks right away (and they would continue ordering drinks), the list goes on and on.
Just because we work in porn and cross-sells have been abused by some companies, that doesnt make them inherantly 'bad' they have been around for centuries in one form or another and will continue to be around for many years to come so long as those companies using them do so honestly.
Regards,
Lee
Until the perception has changed that adult sites are inherently bad purchase risks we must be far more above board then those that sell Snuggies, fake miracle cures and Obama Commerative Coins.
We would not accept entrees in a restaurant that brought them to table just because we didn't specifically tell them we didn't want anything but the chicken we ordered.
We must be far better than our reputation if we are to change it.
Actually, we would and do regularly.... We just dont think of them as up or cross sells.Quote:
Originally Posted by Alex_Manifest_M
There is a reason why restaurants give you breadsticks with your appetizers and entrees.... It makes them more money on drink sales because it makes the consumer want more to drink.
Go to a Ruths Chris Steakhouse, if you just ordered 'steak' you would be given a side of something, or at least asked what sides you wanted with it.
Likewise if a meal comes with a choice of salad or soup and you order a Caesar salad, you get charged a couple of bucks extra in most places for asking for the Caesar where as a house salad comes at no additional cost.
Every time you eat at a restaurant you are asked if you want dessert after you finish your entree, this is a cross-sell, it just happens that its an unchecked cross-sell :)
Delivery charges also, often when you order something online you get hit with a delivery charge, this is a cross-sell/up-sell just as if you ordered a Snuggie, you get charged extra for shipping and handling.
As i mentioned earlier in this thread, cross and up-sells have been abused by many in the industry but that does not make them automatically 'bad' it makes the people abusing them 'bad'.
Regards,
Lee
Pre-checked up and cross sales are simply wrong. "Bad" is "Bad.
But there will always be disagreements over what is and what is not ethical in this and any other industry. We will just agree to disagree.
Alex,
Why are they 'bad' in your opinion?
You havent qualified why you think that they are, other than saying they are 'bad' and that the companies in adult using them are 'shady' but havent given any reasoning behind your conclusions.
Im not wanting to be argumentative, just want to get as many differing opinions as possible on the subject, who knows, maybe you might be able to make me change my opinion that they arent inherantly 'bad' just because they exist.
I have given several examples of them being used in the non-porn world and yet you never hear about people complaining about their usage.
Regards,
Lee
As far as the original question goes... What is your opinion on pre checked cross sells and forced trials on the join page.
Site owners that use those methods are complete scammers! and con artists period! This thread totaly lost it's way, Lee you are getting confused with cross sells and up sells. In marketing 101 an example of a cross sell would be buying a TV and the store offering to sell you a stand or DVD player. A up sell is going to Mcdonalds buying a big mac combo and the cashier asking if you want to super size it.
When a person joins a web site and thinks he is buying a 1 month membership for $29.95 but instead ends up with a membership to 3 sites for $69.95 without realizing it, is a scam! Even worse, by the time he gets his Visa statement and looks at it, he's allready into his second month and been re-billed.
When someone has to carefully go through the fine print on a join form and UN-Check 3 to 6 small boxes, so he won't get billed for things he does not want, then again, it's deceptive, or as most people would call it a scam or rip-off!
Yes there are lots of places that try and up-sell you or cross sell you, it can be annoying, but it's legal and a way of life these days when you buy something. Pre-checked cross sells are totaly different.
I have never seen Go daddy offer pre checked, they give you all kinds of up sells. Expedia and travelocity do this as well, after you book a flight, they try and get you to add a hotel or add car rental or add a tour etc. It can be a bit of a pain to have to scroll down past it. However they are never pre-checked. Can you imagine the public out cry if they did?
I think any adult sites that do this are simply looking to make a quick buck. They will never stay in business very long nor do they expect to, because they are rip-off artists, word spreads as do customer complaints, and finally the CC companies and billing companies are looking into them, so there days are numbered. So if your thinking of using them, and you have a legitimate site, with real content, and you want to make a living in the adult online business, my advice would be to not go near them!
No im not bud, trust me i know what they both are ;)Quote:
Originally Posted by markwolff
They are both upsells ;)Quote:
In marketing 101 an example of a cross sell would be buying a TV and the store offering to sell you a stand or DVD player. A up sell is going to Mcdonalds buying a big mac combo and the cashier asking if you want to super size it.
A cross sell would be offering you a newer TV in addition to the TV you went in to purchase... Because you could get 50% the original price if you purchased two sets.
Or offering you a Big Mac in addition to the cheeseburger you wanted to order.... Because Big Macs were on sale for a $1
A pre-checked cross sell would be adding the price of the second TV set to your order and you not seeing it until you had already paid at the checkout.
Or being given a Big Mac with your cheeseburger, paying for it and not realizing you had paid for it until you had already eaten the Big Mac.
Regards,
Lee
They are bad because they are essentially a trick. Sites that use them do not say "Join here for $4.95 and unless you read all the little text on the join page and un-check some boxes we will charge $99.95. By the way, you will need to cancel four memberships not just one if you don't carefully read everything on the join page."Quote:
Originally Posted by Lee
Amazon will recommend additional books when I buy one, but they do not ship and bill for them unless I specifically ask them to.
The 'pre-checked' is the part that makes them a bad business practice.