USD Dollar value. Feedback. [Archive] - Webmaster Works Forums

blumblumshub

10-05-2007, 06:07 PM

The value of the dollar will take years to recover no matter what happens so you're right, something has to be done, and the Euro is a stable currency.

My only worry is whether it would put US surfers off signing up?
I mean if you just switch from charging in dollars to charging in EU, their cost will go up nearly 50% and if we piss the Americans off enough they will invade our countries and bomb us with shock and awe.

I'd certainly be happier receiving half of 30eu than $30 though, yes.
Full support from me, and my one surviving member!
Blum

{edit} - How would that affect ePassporte payments? Can they deal directly in Euros or would there have to be some kind of conversion and such?

ABRob

10-05-2007, 06:09 PM

thats what we are worried about also.

USA sales being affected. I guess we will be able to tell if we give it a try for a week or so.

blumblumshub

10-05-2007, 06:23 PM

What we need is a reason for a price increase. Maybe keep in USD but switch to $45 a month which is pretty much what they'd pay if we switch to Euros.

It's going to be a heavy price hike however it's done and I would hate the network in general to lose lots of members because of cancelling in mass panic. It seems for some reason more viable to stay with dollars and I can't for the life of me come up with a reason for that other than American patriotism. If we switch to Euros some of the Americans will call us anti-American and such, which is obviously not true, but you know what they can be like.

Obviously my one member will stay through anything, he's been with me since 2003. He's called George. Has hairy palms, no job and a plastic girlfriend. He's blind now, and only his seeing-eye dog can see the monitor anyway, and is a big fan of Tara Patrick, wanting to hump her leg.

Blum

PornstarXS

10-05-2007, 06:38 PM

have to look at it at both sides:

Changing to EURO payment option
Advantage: You get paid more in payouts
Disadvantage: Higher cost for euro memberships to $40-45US can mean they just dont sign up - so you may not get signups at all

Leaving it the same:
Advantage: Increase in euro sales because their dollar is worth more, so it's more affordable to them
Disadvantage: webmaster gets paid in US funds so US dollar isnt worth as much as it use to be

my only conclusion is with the dollar swinging around so much it always benefits someone and fucks over others. US surfers are barely affected because a dollar is a dollar whether it goes up and down (it has more to do with their income than their dollar) If you are Canadian then the Can dollar is on par with US give or take a couple of bucks. Now that US dollar is down maybe we can attract more Canadian and euro surfers where the cost was higher to them in the past.

The dilemma is trying to squeeze out as many dollars as we can but nowadays there are so many other distractions and competition out there you have to be careful not to fuck ourselves over on prices

But in the end maybe a dollar is a dollar no matter where you are - it only becomes an issue when you exchange the currency

Alexv

10-05-2007, 06:50 PM

My only worry is whether it would put US surfers off signing up?

Good point here, Blum. Like Rob said, that's what we worry about either. US surfers are unlikely to pay in Euro unlike the european ones.

We are considering an option to detect a surfer's ip. And if he/she comes from Europe then offer payment in Euro, if from US - then charge him in USD.

Another thing to consider here is the method of payment: while CC works great with US surfers, European traffic will be more willing to use Direct Debit.

blumblumshub

10-05-2007, 06:52 PM

It's the exchange rate that's the problem from my point of view. I am aware that I would now have to make over 40% more signups to pay my bills than I would have when I started.

On the one hand that's just my tough shit, it's my fault for living in a more economically successful country!

On the other hand it's still crap and I have been looking for sponsors that pay in either UK pounds or Euros. Doubt I'd find a decent AVS that was like that though, unless AB does opt for the Euro.
Blum

igor

10-05-2007, 06:53 PM

Here's my opinion. Do not switch to euros, this will piss off americans,
our biggest market, BUT increse membership price to at least $34.95 or
even $39.95.
The last price hike that i remember was from $19.95 to $29.95 (50% up) like 3 years ago and it was surprisingly successful.
So, if we make a 30% hike "what can possibly go wrong..."?

blumblumshub

10-05-2007, 06:54 PM

Another thing to consider here is the method of payment: while CC works great with US surfers, European traffic will be more willing to use Direct Debit.
Dude, Europeans would send you cash through the mail.

Some would walk with it.
Blum

ABRob

10-05-2007, 07:07 PM

LOL.

Mail cash was horrible. People actually send real cash and not a check O_O

i guess we can do a price hike 39.95 perhaps

blumblumshub

10-05-2007, 07:15 PM

We are considering an option to detect a surfer's ip. And if he/she comes from Europe then offer payment in Euro, if from US - then charge him in USD.
Best of both worlds in one sense. European payers are well aware of the differences in currency values though and won't be happy that our US brethren 'get it cheaper'.

I do think that this is a good idea though. I would also hike the price a little for the Americans to bring it more in line with the new Euro price as well though. It is, as has been mentioned by Igor, our biggest market.

It's great that you ask opinions about this rather than just go ahead and do it.

Do you know what our competitors charge? I haven't looked at any of them for ages.
Blum

Alexv

10-05-2007, 07:44 PM

Do you know what our competitors charge? I haven't looked at any of them for ages.
Blum

Most of them still charge $29.95, I saw 1 or 2 of them switching to $34.95

ABRob

10-05-2007, 07:57 PM

most guys are 29.95

but if USD drops more I wonder what theyll be doing? im sure theyre feeling it.

blumblumshub

10-05-2007, 08:06 PM

Well, I think they will be chicken and wait and see who puts the prices up first, and by how much. We could be pioneers!

In my opinion, switching to $34.95 probably won't do the job. It has been three years since the last price increase, and the dollar has dropped like a dying man's blood pressure. An apt analogy, I think.

Maybe $39.95 is the way forward, and maybe change the formats of old movies as quickly as possible so that they are all standardised. Impress the members, and we'll keep them even at ten dollars more expensive than the competition.

That's why some people drive a Ford and some drive a Ferrari. They were impressed!
I take the bus. But at least it's a Mercedes!
Blum

KathyD

10-05-2007, 08:48 PM

I think that the ip detection would be good, but also, raising the US price would be a good idea also. Just charge them $34.95 at first and maybe you can sneak the price up over time.

Americans are an affluent bunch and when it comes down to it, they would have to decide whether its better to flog themselves or miss out on a fast food meal (which is more than $5 on average). I just suggest that you do it before the holiday season really gets underway here. The stress of the holidays really makes people flippant.

ABRob

10-05-2007, 09:45 PM

yes that is true

we wouldnt do it yet most likely after holiday season

korny

10-05-2007, 10:56 PM

most of my new members are from US, so if we change to € it will make low signups..
please stay in $
Korny

grunf

10-05-2007, 11:10 PM

yes...It will be nice to swich in Euro, but here is same situation like korny's. Most of signups are from US.

grunf

blumblumshub

10-05-2007, 11:28 PM

How do you know? Does it tell you somewhere?

PornstarXS

10-05-2007, 11:34 PM

as for what can possibly go wrong with an increase in price? you wont get sales

a good way to compensate for increasing the price is to increase the price on non-standard Visa/Mastercard credit card transactions. Most sites deal with these credit card transactions - so you want to keep prices competitive there whether it's in $US or not.

But you can increase the costs on other payments like what is done with the web900. So you can do that with Euro debit/ asian cards etc and you can do the same possibly with checks. Many pay programs deal with Visa/MC transactions so lots of euro/asian traffic gets left out - maybe thats where you can take advantage of a price increase. If thats the only way to pay and there are no other options then they'll pay.

Looking over pornstarxs.com stats i see sales from all countries. It's the butterfly effect - an increasing or dropping dollar always effects someone. I think the dropping dollar is good for sucking in a euro market, their dollar is strong so let them get addicted for a while - just have to hold on to your US dollars until it goes back up (next year around election time) to cash in.

either way this is a good discussion

AB-QA

10-05-2007, 11:49 PM

How do you know? Does it tell you somewhere?

You can see from here.
http://webmasters.adultbouncer.com/sales/earnings.php

Then click on the tab that says "signup income" then "transaction list" This will show you where in the world "only" your customers come from.

naja

10-06-2007, 02:07 AM

Well I think you should do it really soon if you want to switch to euro... cuz the usd's loosing weight every days. At the moment.. won't be that worst... but if you wait 6 month and the usd loose more value as it will do... maybe you'll loose a lot of customers...

(edit) - how come i cant's have a sexy avatar too?:P

blumblumshub

10-06-2007, 05:31 PM

You can see from here.
http://webmasters.adultbouncer.com/sales/earnings.php

Then click on the tab that says "signup income" then "transaction list" This will show you where in the world "only" your customers come from.
Oh, that's handy. Thanks :D
Blum

Twistedmind

10-07-2007, 12:15 AM

Everything has been said, but personally, i'd go for a small prce rise instead of switching to euro since the USA surfer are prolly already suffering from their dollar value in other parts of their economy...

start with 29.95 to 34.95... because some of the other sites are at 34.95 atm, if we have a $45/month membership, then surfers might prefer to signup somewhere cheaper...

igor

10-07-2007, 08:41 PM

I think $34.95 is a reasonable increase. Again, i think most of the webmasters here expirienced our latest hike from $19.95 to $29.95 about 3 years ago. I personally didn't experience any drop in sales and actually kept growing. And it's a 50% hike.
However back then we were the last with the hike, behind DeluxePass.
So i think $34.95 is a safe bet for now.

blumblumshub

10-07-2007, 11:23 PM

I don't think that's enough to beat the deflation of the dollar. It's a very safe option for member acquisition, but I'm not sure it'll make enough difference to the network's profits or the webmasters.

On a personal level I now make roughly the same on a sale as I did before the last hike.
Blum

Twistedmind

10-08-2007, 12:51 PM

No it won't be enough to cover up the big drop from their dollar but it would at least mean a bit more in our pocket since changing to euro would be too much for them and hiking to 40$ is the same.

If you check the other programs around here and the millions of paysite you will rarely see prices over 35$ and even then, most of 'em are still somewhere between 20 and 30$/month

igor

10-09-2007, 03:07 AM

If deflation of dollar is the main concern, i don't think it's a big threat in the long term. Hedge yourself, buy euros if you think dollar will continue to fall. Hedge yourself on european stock market, whatever... After all i don't see european economy being so superior to american (I do a lot of trading myself).
Anyway, i think it's wise to test on $34.95 first. See how it goes and if it will bring a sales fall.

blumblumshub

10-09-2007, 08:31 AM

Isn't the idea of trading to buy the cheap stock and sell it goes high? How would buying stronger currency help? Going to wait 'til the value drops so you can sell for a loss?

I wouldn't care about a weak dollar if I bought things in that currency, but I don't, so it's just a dead horse as far as I'm concerned.
Blum

SixTwoSix

10-09-2007, 08:53 AM

I haven't posted anything here yet because I wanted to wait to see what others thought. I personally was hit quite hard when the dollar dropped, when I started this I was getting 75p to the dollar, now it's more like 50p to the dollar.

It really is a double edged sword, stick the the dollar, hike the price up to maybe $35 and signups will continue...probably uninterupted but the overall income isn't that great. Move to the euro and I really do think you'll see a significant drop in signups but this may be balanced out by the extra amount you get per signup so I think that whatever you do, you're going to suffer in one way or another.

I'm not sure if you've done it before, but how about doing a $5 trial 3-5 days signup which converts to a higher $40 membership, I think that once the surfer is through the door so to speak and see what is on offer, they are quite likely to keep the membership regardless of whether it's $30 or $40.

korny

10-09-2007, 08:53 PM

stay $29.95
it is price no high no low = OK price :-)
and USD will go high in 6-10 months.. I hope..

blumblumshub

10-10-2007, 12:37 AM

I would love to have that optimism. Clearly someone is earning too much ;)

igor

10-10-2007, 04:15 AM

My remark regarding euro hedge was to people who are willing to switch signup price to euros. I'm not against trying the price hike, but i'm against moving to euro quotes.
If you don't like dollar and you think it will continue falling, buy euros on the spot after you get your every payout.
I don't think that 29.95 euros vs. $29.95 will fool anyone. This can be also tested, but i wouldn't want to switch the whole network to euros on the spot...

ABRob

10-10-2007, 08:24 PM

ya we are scrapping the idea

we will try a price hike and see from there

blumblumshub

10-10-2007, 09:20 PM

It was worth exploring the idea though.

Have you decided how much the price hike will be?
Blum

ABRob

10-10-2007, 10:48 PM

around 34.95 we will hike it to.

Twistedmind

10-11-2007, 12:37 AM

Great, IMHO it's a smart choice not to raise the price too much on one shot.

blumblumshub

10-11-2007, 08:57 AM

Yeah, can always increase it again later.

Hope it helps anyway :)

DLXXXDVDs.com

10-12-2007, 02:23 AM

I don't mind it actually, the US dollar means I can now get my hosting and software the states much cheaper than before. I mean just today the US dollar was worth $0.90AUD, that is the highest I have ever seen it. I'm even considering dropping a few hundred into paypal so I can prepay my hosting for the next year.

ABRob

10-12-2007, 05:09 PM

Its good for Europe and Canada (if you have a business in canada cna charge canadian dollars)

but for usa people it blows and i guess thats for the entire porn industry :)

now when i buy canadian stuff i get hosed from conversion

i try to convert least as possible

blumblumshub

10-12-2007, 06:21 PM

It's certainly a buyer's market at the moment. I just don't buy anything!

ABRob

10-12-2007, 07:19 PM

yes I buy from USA now because its cheaper in the first place.

i hope canadian dollar drops soon:)

blumblumshub

10-12-2007, 08:01 PM

Bloody America. Leaders of the free world, my arse!

Twistedmind

10-13-2007, 04:36 AM

If the USD continue to lose value it'll be worse for AB... I just hope it doesn't "kill " us all

KathyD

10-13-2007, 12:49 PM

I was just talking to some friends, and it brought up a thought. The spending of the Average American Joe Wanker should be increasing over the next few month due to the increases to the national minimum wage. So, over time, AB could slowly raise their rates to follow this trend and keep their rates in line with the Euro. The dollar may devalue a bit more in the next few months, but over the next year or two, people should be more open to slight price wages.

I admit, I'm just trying to pull some optimism out my arse.

blumblumshub

10-13-2007, 02:54 PM

Optimism is always good, when entwined around the right amount of realism, which your statement seems to be.

I didn't know America was increasing its minimum wage. I am hoping Britain does the same, but I haven't heard either way.
Blum

AB-QA

10-13-2007, 06:01 PM

SixTwoSix

10-13-2007, 07:28 PM

Yup...our minimum wage is going up, by all of fucking 20p an hour!

blumblumshub

10-13-2007, 07:42 PM

Oh that's just shit. An extra £1.60 on an average day's work. Whee.

SixTwoSix

10-13-2007, 09:18 PM

I've worked for minimum wage over the last 3 years so I really feel for anyone that has no choice but to earn these shit wages, even if I don't get masses of signups, I can still make much more doing this than any kind of "real" job!

blumblumshub

10-13-2007, 10:07 PM

Hmmm, I'm not getting any signups yet, but I'm spending too much time on my sites and no time at all promoting them in any way.

AB-QA

10-14-2007, 01:39 AM

I know the UK sucks with wages and the cost of things :( But if you really want to see some more pain then look here below. Not everything in this world is painted with rosy colored glasses.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/6690253.stm

SixTwoSix

10-14-2007, 10:41 AM

he he...damn, with the exchange rate as it is right now, that's 5 times the increase we had, then again, the old minimum wage for US was pretty poor.

KathyD

10-14-2007, 07:51 PM

The first article didn't add that it would be raised again in 2008 and 2009. Its small, but is an increase in American buying power. So $5 USD may be more acceptable for now but in 2 years, they may tolerate a bit more.

blumblumshub

10-15-2007, 12:05 AM

I'm all for improving peoples' buying power.

Especially mine.

ABRob

10-15-2007, 04:33 PM

Hrmm.

I guess it is a good idea to raise wages since everyone and their mother will be buying from USA. For Canada, USA has cheaper prices on everything. for instance I can buy a car here in Canada for 35000 and same one in USA for 28000-30000.

With value of USD going down this affects outside regions. So in a way for USa its good I guess alot more business. They anticipate a recession in Canada because of it. I won't be buying from Canada, fuck them. Canadian government fucks me enough so ill spend my money outside.

So thats what everyone is doing. The people entering USA has increased at the border. the lineups are mad.

So in a way its good for usa and its only a matter of time before the usa dollar goes back up.

KathyD

10-17-2007, 11:15 PM

I just got this email from a fairly prominent adult search engine and it seems that they have already had the same debate. I tweaked the name but I'm fairly sure you can guess who it is.

Dear customer,

Today AskJoe changed its default currency from US dollars to euros. This
means that from now on, every transaction will be in euros. This will be
clearly indicated on the invoices we send to you and on the balance sheets
you can download in Topspots.

We strive to make the transition as painless as possible. We have automatically
transformed the credit left in your Topspots account into euros. To make sure
you get what you bargained for, we gave you one euro for every dollar.

The Topspots interface now lists all amounts in euros. We moved all statistics
from the dollar period to a special section that you can easily access through
a special switch at the top on every page. This way we avoid exchange rate
conversions that may cause confusion and you don't lose any history.

If you have any questions or complaints, don't hesitate to contact us.

Regards,
Team AskJoe

ABRob

10-25-2007, 04:03 PM

so when they charge do they charge the same price cept euros? theyre gonna lose alot of clients if so.

MUNK

11-07-2007, 08:18 PM

Realistically foreign joins will go up.

The dropping $ can be harnessed to our advantage.

Just time to localize.

ABRob

11-08-2007, 05:45 PM

Its not good for Canada because I dont buy anything here anymore.

Yes its good for us but bad for people that charge USD currency so I need to buy outside. Even if I charged CDN currency id still buy outside. Its all over the news that Canada is being affected and to start its the auto industry.

PornstarXS

11-09-2007, 12:05 AM

yup hopefully the Canadian dollar sinks. Watching some news they say the Canadian dollar is relative to the price of oil. If the price per barrel goes up Canadian dollar seems to go up too. I just hope the Canadian dollar drops again that means a 20% raise. holla holla

ABRob

11-09-2007, 05:25 PM

YES

and hurry up HOLLA!!

xpc

11-18-2007, 03:44 PM

well things are gonna change here like the president soon wont be a repulican hawk this time around well lets hope so. so i say, wait and see usa $ may rise again. if only slick willy bill could be president again >.>

dont canadians pay with their teeth ;p hahahahaha ok, hockey joke, sorry .........eh?

ABRob

11-19-2007, 03:38 PM

LOL

pay with their teeth? we pay with horses.

MUNK

11-23-2007, 07:24 AM

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4n3g5lUgkWk

i miss the 1.5 us exchange rate days. :neutral:

ABRob

11-23-2007, 05:32 PM

fuck man tell me about this

this is fucken bullshit

we need to TANK!!! turn into a 3rd world country :)

Twistedmind

11-23-2007, 06:52 PM

There is sense in this footage...

But it means problems for us as most of our members comes from the US... This might mean, in future, that we'll have to set our sight on another continent... But then we have a problem, as the other continent are unfortunately speaking French, German, English, Spanish, Italian, Finnish and whole lot of foreign languages, including chinese and japanese...

Adult webmasters having to learn new languages ? why not...

stamp

04-01-2008, 03:02 AM

Euro? If you want Euros, you must penetrate the European market. Does AB is heading this way?

No way any American will ever pay in Euro. My two cents....

Adult webmasters having to learn new languages ? why not...
I speak French as my first language :wink:, I see that you don't have any French sections BUT a respectable French videos selections ... why don't anyone give it a try? Y'all English speaker?

"This thread is HOT!" -Paris Hilton

ABRob

04-01-2008, 04:28 PM

Well that would be up to the site owner to change his language. Alot of the billers dont acomodate Euros. I think at this time only Paycom does. We would be losing the cascading option for Euros if we did it. Adding a Euro option isn't difficult at all. But yes we've seen from the past Europe sales have increased and USA has gone down.

It used to be around 70% USA and the remiainng Europe/Canada/etc.

I think Europe is around 10-20% now and USA 55-60%.

If you'd like us to add a Europe currency option its pretty simple.

You'd have to gear your site around Europeans then. We offer the ability to skin the join page so you can do translations on your own if you like.

stamp

04-05-2008, 02:16 AM

We offer the ability to skin the join page so you can do translations on your own if you like.

Well, that would be great for a lot of webmasters if you could have this same skin page in different language .... ?

Since most of the webmasters here speak only English and cannot really reach foreign audience ...

1- Yes, the "foreign surfers" don't really care if they don't understand shit in the preview section ...they see numbers, "DVD" and titties. They still WANT to buy. (Well, I didn't really care about the text when I browsed some dutchs pornsite some days ago.)

2- But, when they want to make a $TRANSACTION$, they want to read the terms in THEIR languages. (Would you sign a contract in Swedish even if the babes are hot? ....hmmmmm.....)
The billers does have their translators, but the skin page doesn't ...

I don't know if this could help selling more memberships and/or putting more Euros in the bank...
HAR HAR , AMERICA!