Paysite On CD?

[Lee]

I was wondering what you folks thought about this idea, today we've pretty much just spent the day brainstorming new ways of generating revenue and one of the ideas we came up with was offering entire paysites on CDRom or FlashDrives.

Basically, for $40 or whatever price, the surfer would be 'buying' a disk or drive with a tour on it and a members area, filled with as much content as a CD or small sized flash drive (probably around the 1GB size) could handle.

Do you think this would work as an additional revenue stream to compliment and existing site?

Also, on the flip-side of the idea, where do you think we'd stand in terms of content licensing for such an idea? I have checked through a couple of the licenses we have and they actually dont mention anything about not being able to sell the content in this manner.

Your thoughts, do you think this could be a way to generate additional revenue streams for a paysite?

Regards,

Lee

[basschick]

i see possibilities for lazy surfers who don't want to waste their time downloading. no rebills that way, though - and all those messy mail regulations.

[Lee]

Patti,

Yeah the no rebills is an issue we're still brainstorming over although that could possibly be gotten around by charging for the drive (if its on a Flash drive) or even just limiting the amount of content being delivered with the option to 'upgrade' to a permanent account which would rebill if they liked what they saw on the CD/Drive.

Mailing shouldnt really be an issue either so long as the content isnt of the Max Hardcore genre LOL

Regards,

Lee

[SirGuy]

Mailing shouldnt really be an issue either so long as the content isnt of the Max Hardcore genre LOL

Regards,

Lee

I actually really like this idea - never thought of marketing this way before.

Years ago we used to sell adult photo cdroms in adult retail stores locally. Sales were fairly good and the profit margin (even with the store owner's percentage) made it worthwhile.

We also sold copies through the mail for a few years - and mailed them internationally without a single problem. And the discs contained quite extreme (but legal in Canada) original content.

That said - I'd suggest making a list of countries where shipping your content would pose a legal problem...and refuse transactions to those countries (with an explanation to the potential customer).

The snag would be the recurring, as already mentioned. I'd be inclined to give a special discount signup to anyone who'd previously purchased the site on cdrom.

And even though Paypal doesn't process adult-oriented transactions, I'd still be tempted to use them for cdrom sales...but continually transfer funds and keep the account balance under $100 at all times.

[derekt]

And even though Paypal doesn't process adult-oriented transactions, I'd still be tempted to use them for cdrom sales...but continually transfer funds and keep the account balance under $100 at all times.

Paypal does allow adult transactions now, but there is an agreement that you have to physically sign.

[SirGuy]

Paypal does allow adult transactions now, but there is an agreement that you have to physically sign.

Oh?

Hmm...will have to take another look. It's been awhile since I last looked at their TOS.

Thanks.

[derekt]

We used paypal a few years ago to sell on EBay. Sales were hopping! One day, we got a chargeback for a $6.00 total order. Paypal found out about it, hung onto a lot of money (eventually releasing it after nearly 9 months of holding it.)

Our shopping cart system (through a third party) has the ability to integrate with Paypal.

An application was put in to accept Paypal back when we were having problems with the bank. Paypal refused it. Paypal one day sent us a letter that they are now accepting adult transactions.

A friend of mine was in a similar situation. 2 years ago he tried selling their DVDs through paypal. Same situation, they were caught. Paypal called them up on the phone out of the clear and said, "We'll allow adult transactions now."

This is all that I know. I don't know if you have to be established with Paypal. I don't know if you have to have a relationship with them or what the case may be.

We accept everything but American Express. We don't accept American Express because it has the "Customer Protection Plan." Meaning, if your not happy with the purchase within 90 days, you call Amex, and they will refund you the money and you can keep the product. Nobody ever told us that Amex pulls the money back from the Merchant. Little did we know a customer purchased $380.00 worth of product and he decided to do that. We dropped American Express REALLY QUICK. That sucks because on the forms it said the customer did receive the product, the customer was happy with his product, however HE lost the DVDs when he was moving.
We accept all 3 of the major credit cards, checks over the phone, mail in orders. We don't have a need for Paypal.
And we don't really process internationally anymore.

[SirGuy]

We used paypal a few years ago to sell on EBay. Sales were hopping! One day, we got a chargeback for a $6.00 total order. Paypal found out about it, hung onto a lot of money (eventually releasing it after nearly 9 months of holding it.)

Our shopping cart system (through a third party) has the ability to integrate with Paypal.

An application was put in to accept Paypal back when we were having problems with the bank. Paypal refused it. Paypal one day sent us a letter that they are now accepting adult transactions.

A friend of mine was in a similar situation. 2 years ago he tried selling their DVDs through paypal. Same situation, they were caught. Paypal called them up on the phone out of the clear and said, "We'll allow adult transactions now."

This is all that I know. I don't know if you have to be established with Paypal. I don't know if you have to have a relationship with them or what the case may be.

We accept everything but American Express. We don't accept American Express because it has the "Customer Protection Plan." Meaning, if your not happy with the purchase within 90 days, you call Amex, and they will refund you the money and you can keep the product. Nobody ever told us that Amex pulls the money back from the Merchant. Little did we know a customer purchased $380.00 worth of product and he decided to do that. We dropped American Express REALLY QUICK. That sucks because on the forms it said the customer did receive the product, the customer was happy with his product, however HE lost the DVDs when he was moving.
We accept all 3 of the major credit cards, checks over the phone, mail in orders. We don't have a need for Paypal.
And we don't really process internationally anymore.

Interesting.

Following up on my comment above, I skimmed through their TOS and noticed they do seem to be allowing "certain adult-oriented transactions". So I sent an email to their compliance email with all the info they requested...just to see what they say.

I don't expect they'll allow our stuff, of course. But I thought what-the-hell. Lately we've been less than pleased with our current Verotel processing...so any option we can put on the table would be an improvement I think.

And yes, we've had a long-standing history with Paypal with no problems - probably about 8 years at least (which I pointed out in the email).

Either way, their answer will be interesting.

[derekt]

Lately we've been less than pleased with our current Verotel processing...so any option we can put on the table would be an improvement I think.

I am not bashing Verotel, we were a verotel client when we first started out initially with "Tickets Club" and Verotel. We were with them a total of 4 weeks and bailed out quick.

They have been accused of skimming stats and affiliate payouts, they aren't reliable as they used to.

We left Verotel, went to CCBill. We had a problem with a support rep with CCBill, left to Epoch. Epoch fucked us. We were just getting ready to go to another biller, but everything was patched up with the CCBill rep and CCBill, we went back, and have been very happy with CCBill since. We've stuck around about 3 years now.

My suggestion is to get set up with another processor, change your join links to the new processor, and let your current members rebill through verotel.

[SirGuy]

I am not bashing Verotel, we were a verotel client when we first started out initially with "Tickets Club" and Verotel. We were with them a total of 4 weeks and bailed out quick.

They have been accused of skimming stats and affiliate payouts, they aren't reliable as they used to.

We left Verotel, went to CCBill. We had a problem with a support rep with CCBill, left to Epoch. Epoch fucked us. We were just getting ready to go to another biller, but everything was patched up with the CCBill rep and CCBill, we went back, and have been very happy with CCBill since. We've stuck around about 3 years now.

My suggestion is to get set up with another processor, change your join links to the new processor, and let your current members rebill through verotel.

Yep, we're currently shopping for a better primary processor at the moment.

Similiarly, we've gone through several processors over the years - got snarled up in the iBill rip-off and lost a s**tload of revenues at the time, which took awhile to recover from.

Verotel has only been somewhat of a stop-gap for us lately. We never planned on having them process for us indefinitely. And after they screwed us lately over (alleged) DDEU transaction chargebacks, we're speeding up our timeline to switch.

We may give epoch or ccbill some more thought. We've also been in negotiations with our bank about getting a merchant account ourselves and skip the 3rd party skimmers entirely.