Two Tier Porn

[StunnerJesse]

I am sure there is an answer, and I have my own theories, but I am wondering what others think...

Why do all of the porn sites, no matter how shitty or good, all come in at around the same price point?

Whatever happened to paying for quality and brand? It works in retail. Why doesn't it work in porn?

You have the sites with a ton of exclusive, expensive updates charging the same as sites with crappy semi-exclusive updates. Or even crappy exclusive updates that are still crap, whether exclusive or not.

Sure, I know that the quality sites make it up in number of memberships sold ... they sell a lot more. If they are the creme of the crop, wouldn't they sell nearly just as many (or just as many) if they charged an extra $5 a month -- say $34.95?

The psychology of pricing argument doesn't really make sense to me. People will pay $70 for a white tee shirt if its a hot brand.

Any ideas?

[Squirt]

I think it comes down to people buying what they want and being willing to pay a set price for it.

I know people who buy pants over a hundred dollars that are ripped up and "aged" I know others who have to have name brand perfect jeans and wont pay more then $60 and shop sales. quite odd

My sleepingmen.com site is done is night vision but is a niche people LOVE and are willing to pay my set price to get the content.

Why do people pay $1 for a small bottle tap water?

[Lee]

I think to some extent what Squirt mentions is right however, i also think to a greater extent it is because paysite owners are not willing to experiment and actually see how much surfers are willing to pay for their product.

When we first launched Condom Cash i was told that $24.95 was to expensive and surfers wouldnt pay that to join the sites, i raised the price to $29.95, was told there was no way surfers would pay that, i raised the price point agaiin to $34.95 and again was told that surfers wouldnt pay that, another price raise later annd at $39.95 surfers are still joining the site like they did when i was charging $24.95 and im making an additional $15 from my original prices.

Now i do know, when the price point is set at $44.95 new signups decreased, i tried this price point for about 2 weeks and removed it.

Ultimately, i think many paysite owners either dont want to take a risk by changing their price points to see what works or, are actually listening to people who simply put, dont have a clue about running paysites and just 'go with the norm'.

Regards,

Lee

[DrChango]

What of the idea of lower prices and thus increasing memberships? Less profit per customer, but double or triple the number of customers?

You would need to lower the PPS for your webmasters so you aren't getting beat upside the head, but if they get several times as many conversions, it would work out better for them in the long term.

Our mobile sites have a 20 buck membership, but they convert like mad. No BS, they are literally doing 50% more than their stated goal. I firmly believe that they convert so well in part due to their lower membership fee.

[Lee]

Jacob,

Again though, the problem with lower priced memberships is that many simply wont/cant try them, the same rings true for micro billing which, incidently, was supposed to be a HUGE phenomenon several years ago but most program owners didnt want to change a working business model, even if it meant they had the potential to increase revenues.

I think a lot of program owners look at things with the mindset of 'this is working, if its working dont fix it' and whilst typically that is a good way to look at things, just because something isnt broken, that doesnt mean you shouldnt run regular tests for new approaches to doing business.

Any program owner that constantly does the same thing, over and over and over again without throwing in some new things to test results, gain their own sets of data, etc, imho, is in business for the short term, not the long haul.

Im always testing things on Condom Cash, whether it is price points, content layouts in members area, update frequencies, types of updates, upsells, cross sells, you name it, anything i can test to give me stable data that i can use to improve my bottom line profits im going to test, many however, stick to what they consider 'the norm' and anything above and beyond that just isnt something they want to do.

I remember a year or two back someone asked me why their members site wasnt retaining, i told them the reason was because their members area was to 'clean' (i mean literally, everything was laid out like a surgeons table full of instruments, sterile and ready to be used) and that he had to mix things up a little, maybe add in a couple of upsells just to break up the monotany of the sites members area, i was basically told i was wrong.

A few months later i got an IM from the guy saying he finally did what i suggested and his retention had increased to almost 60%.... His mindset was that a sites members area had to be clean, clutter free and just show the content and nothing else... My mindset was the more you can show a member, the more they will stick around, and they did.

I think more often than not adult webmasters, sponsor programs and paysite owners get used to doing things a certain way, anything outside of that comfort zone just doesnt make sense to them and thus ultimately, wont work... But unless they try, they will never know and will always accuse anyone doing things that they dont understand of being 'wrong'.

Regards,

Lee

[DrChango]

Jacob,

Again though, the problem with lower priced memberships is that many simply wont/cant try them, the same rings true for micro billing which, incidently, was supposed to be a HUGE phenomenon several years ago but most program owners didnt want to change a working business model, even if it meant they had the potential to increase revenues.

I think a lot of program owners look at things with the mindset of 'this is working, if its working dont fix it' and whilst typically that is a good way to look at things, just because something isnt broken, that doesnt mean you shouldnt run regular tests for new approaches to doing business.

Any program owner that constantly does the same thing, over and over and over again without throwing in some new things to test results, gain their own sets of data, etc, imho, is in business for the short term, not the long haul.

Im always testing things on Condom Cash, whether it is price points, content layouts in members area, update frequencies, types of updates, upsells, cross sells, you name it, anything i can test to give me stable data that i can use to improve my bottom line profits im going to test, many however, stick to what they consider 'the norm' and anything above and beyond that just isnt something they want to do.

I remember a year or two back someone asked me why their members site wasnt retaining, i told them the reason was because their members area was to 'clean' (i mean literally, everything was laid out like a surgeons table full of instruments, sterile and ready to be used) and that he had to mix things up a little, maybe add in a couple of upsells just to break up the monotany of the sites members area, i was basically told i was wrong.

A few months later i got an IM from the guy saying he finally did what i suggested and his retention had increased to almost 60%.... His mindset was that a sites members area had to be clean, clutter free and just show the content and nothing else... My mindset was the more you can show a member, the more they will stick around, and they did.

I think more often than not adult webmasters, sponsor programs and paysite owners get used to doing things a certain way, anything outside of that comfort zone just doesnt make sense to them and thus ultimately, wont work... But unless they try, they will never know and will always accuse anyone doing things that they dont understand of being 'wrong'.

Regards,

Lee

I think that sort of "inertia" applies to nearly every aspect of business, academia, and government=(

[tim460]

I think that sort of "inertia" applies to nearly every aspect of business, academia, and government=(

I do, too...and to one's life itself.:high: