People have argued for decades about whether products are more important than services, or if services are more important than products, or if products are services, and so on. What no one disagrees on, however, is the absolute requirement to be able to charge for those goods, services, or both. That is where "billing," an overly broad term, to say the least, ends all arguments. After all, we are not working for the sheer fun of it (well, not all the time anyway).
Each and every day, content is produced, marketing promotions are launched, services are provided, surfers join sites, and the industry grows at least a little bit. And all of the growth comes down to one measurement—dollars billed. When you look at your competition, your first thought is probably, "How much are they selling (read: billing) every month?" While the answers are as wide and varied as the content available for sale, it is still the one metric we all agree upon that matters when measuring economic success, i.e., how many dollars per click are you capturing?
Create as many $$ avenues as possible.
The one constant that I have seen in the most successful programs is that they use every billing option available to capture as many sales as possible. And they use those that are honest and not deceptive. Just good, plain business sense that adds many dollars a year to their bottom line.
Billing does not mean just accepting credit cards for your products and services. Webmasters need to understand and recognize that most of the world does not have a Visa or a MasterCard readily available. Many do, and those are the bread-and-butter sales. I have been asked for years, "Do you think Visa and MasterCard will shut down adult sales?" My answer has been and remains a strong "No." In my opinion those payment options will never go away.
Visa and MasterCard cardholders have shown for many years that they clearly want what we sell. "Acceptance" is the term the card associations use when referring to where their brands are taken as payment. With well over a billion dollars a year in credit card sales for Internet content alone, these associations are not likely to tell their customers they can't use their cards to buy adult content. Visa and MasterCard understand that this industry is legal, under control, not running rampant with fraud, and that millions of their cardholders buy these services every year and will continue to do so.
American Express learned very quickly that their cardholders, when told they could not use their Amex cards to buy content, simply pulled out a Visa, MasterCard, or Discover Card. So, no, these sales won't go away.
There is no better way to obtain and or keep your hard-earned customers than by offering multiple billing options. This means accepting online or ACH checks in the U.S., providing country-specific payment options such as SWITCH and SOLO from the UK, giving your Japanese clients the ability to use their JCB Card, accepting so-called alternative payment methods that are tried and true, such as ePassporte, and also recognizing the importance of at least offering a dialer solution, although the payouts are far less than other payment methods.
Billing all comes down to giving people the ability to buy from you with any legitimate and honest payment method available. If you are reading this article you are interested in long-term success and in learning a bit more about your options in increasing sales. That says a lot about your commitment to success. Read more, attend the seminars at the shows, research what works for your competition. Look at the so-called "Big Guys," those running the Sponsor Programs we all know by name and reputation; they understand the importance of being able to get dollars out of their traffic by providing their customers with safe and secure payment options and by offering them virtually every payment method available today.
Billing diversity equals success and allows you to stop throwing sales away because your options as a merchant are limited to credit card sales. Adding options will add money and value to your business.
Chris Mallick is an experienced transaction processing professional who has owned and operated companies for more than 25 years in the health care and credit card processing sectors.
