So I’m a little frustrated at this point and not sure how to proceed. I am missing a critical piece of my business workflow: the ability to take payment from my customers as I was foolishly using PayPal as a payment processor. But I still have request for goods and services coming in and they are piling up.
I’ve researched and applied for all sorts of billing options. CCBill had the worst service and ‘implementation’ specialists ever, and I dont think I’m going to use them. Other options I’ve checked out are everything from Charge.com, Guardian Finance, Maverick Cash and the Transaction Group, Zambio, Payza, Payoneer, Venmo and the list goes on.
I feel that I’m too small to need a merchant account and many of the requirements they require. Yet, as 60% of my customer base is Non-US based, and I am supposedly in a “high risk” category, it is making it difficult to find a smaller scale “vendor” or “Individual” style account.
I don’t have a risky business model. Every one of my customers has had repeat transactions, voluntarily. I’m not a membership site, I don’t do re-bills and I don’t operate on a loss-leader model. I’m primarily a fan site and secondarily, I provide customer service. I have daily individual interaction with my fans and customers. And every Monday they are waiting for me to post more stuff to sell online and to provide webcam shows. And each time they gladly enter their credit card and pay.
So what are my options? Is there a network or umbrella site that would be interested something like what I offer?
I’m just frustrated that I’ve spend the last 3 days trying to fix things that might not even matter when the emails are piling up and people are just waiting for instruction on when to do now.
Re: Crossroads: Go it alone or join with up with someone?
I am far from being any kind of an expert, but I can understand the frustration you are feeling, with orders piling up and no apparent way to satisfy those requests, but honestly, three days isn’t a long time to have spent. Hard when you have other ‘hats’ to wear, but not an end of the world type of situation.
As to being too small to need your own merchant account, maybe not. Why not contact netbilling, they post on this forum, and they have a thread in announcements forum I believe. Give the guy a holler, maybe it isn’t as bad or as intiriquite as you think.
While it isn’t an ideal solution, maybe have them send a bank or money order, for now. It might help, might not, but is a stop gap possibility. Thing is, after three days of running around, I wouldn’t be giving up the ship yet, but plod on.
You might want to look and see if you can use stripe.com
The problem is most of the PayPal type easy to set up and use systems don’t allow adult goods.
Netbilling will allow adult goods and isint too hard to set up but it will take them a week or so to do it.
I usually work with Wendy at netbilling.
If you really want to take payments NOW and your customers are willing to send you their card info directly you can sign up for square and key the numbers into your iphone.
Re: Crossroads: Go it alone or join with up with someone?
Does anyone use Google Wallet and/or Google Shopping? I’ve throughly looked over their AUP and they are very specific about legal pornography is allowed. Legal pornography Allowed (Allowed with limitations)
In certain countries, Google allows pornography where it specifies that all models are 18 or over. However, these ads will be given an “adult” status. Learn about the limitations for product listings marked âadultâ in the family status Fetish pornography Allowed (Allowed with limitations) Google allows “bdsm” and fetish sites as long as all content is consensual and there’s no language implying rape or non-consensual sex acts. However, these product listings will be given an “adult” status. Learn about the limitations for product listings marked âadultâ in the family status
Re: Crossroads: Go it alone or join with up with someone?
I didnt see you mention Epoch. Did you reach out to them?
I would agree that a merchant account is probably better than a 3rd party service in the long run (I always go for long run solutions if I can).
One other solution if you are looking to process payments right now would be to contact people and ask for email money transfers and activate the memberships in your system manually. Again not ideal, but it will keep your userbase going while you get this sorted out.
For what it’s worth, I recommend going it alone. I’m not a fan of partnerships. They start off sounding great, but never seem to work out very well in the end. There are some exceptions of course, but there are a lot more “what the fuck did I get myself into” stories than “gee this worked out wonderfully” ones.
Re: Crossroads: Go it alone or join with up with someone?
Well I thought I was done with CCBill. We had a couple days back & forth, frustrated they were not hearing my concerns and getting form mail “Borg-like” responses. So last night, exhausted, my last email was a little blunt and critical. I was honestly done with them and ready to accept Amazon gift cards or Bitcoin payments if I had to.
Today, everything changed. I’ve had phone calls, several of them from CCBill. It seems they reviewed the emails and they apologized for the breakdown in communication. They wanted to know my issues and said they will find a way to make it work and be seamless for the customer, which is what I wanted.
Re: Crossroads: Go it alone or join with up with someone?
I hope you get somewhere with CCbill and would be interested to hear the final outcome. I have used them for memberships on usedandworn. The set up was quite easy but I hear you on the borg like responses!
They would not help me with my goods however as they felt used underwear etc was against their TOS. However they said id i wanted to sell new underwear or sex toys that would be fine.
Re: Crossroads: Go it alone or join with up with someone?
[QUOTE=samuelcolt;138196]Does anyone use Google Wallet and/or Google Shopping? I’ve throughly looked over their AUP and they are very specific about legal pornography is allowed. Legal pornography Allowed (Allowed with limitations)
In certain countries, Google allows pornography where it specifies that all models are 18 or over. However, these ads will be given an “adult” status. Learn about the limitations for product listings marked âadultâ in the family status Fetish pornography Allowed (Allowed with limitations) Google allows “bdsm” and fetish sites as long as all content is consensual and there’s no language implying rape or non-consensual sex acts. However, these product listings will be given an “adult” status. Learn about the limitations for product listings marked âadultâ in the family status
I can’t really offer any insight into other payment methods, but I wouldn’t use Google for anything. I used them briefly for BlokeToys and within a month they’d cancelled the account. They decided that there was something they didn’t agree with, wouldn’t tell me what it was, and just basically told me to fuck off.
They are the most Victorian and backward company of all when it comes to payment and adult industry, worse than PayPal. They will likely find a reason to close your account within a month or two, and you’ll be back to square one.
Re: Crossroads: Go it alone or join with up with someone?
[QUOTE=samuelcolt;138241]Currently, my processing needs are as follows:
Digital goods are:
live one-on-one webcam
private group webcam
pre-recorded custom videos for download
Tangible goods are:
personal items like gym shirts, etc and new underwear that I’ve used in my camshows or videos.
small merchandise like photos, lube & cockrings
shipping fee of these items
expanding to a small “Shop” offering more complete quality products like leather, toys, etc (primarily through affiliates)[/QUOTE]
Hey there,
Just to add my own 2 cents.
I think you should absolutely consider your own merchant account, which allows you to control every aspect of your online billing. If you need all of the bells and whistles of a 3rd party IPSP, then by all means go that way but from what I’ve seen so far it appears that you could do this yourself, quite easily.
I’d welcome the opportunity to explain more to you. We’re www.payze.com as well as Mansites and are made up of industry veterans.
Thanks!
:no: