Micropayments on the site, or selfish question
Good day, Habraludi.
I want to share with you a real problem, the solution of which I could not find on the Internet, so the comments “Google to help” will be out of place - perhaps direct links to serious resources where you can really find useful information.
So.
Our company has a certain site X. One of the earning channels from the site, in addition to media and other advertising, is micropayments from our users for paying for the content that they carry out by sending SMS from mobile phones.
Immediately make a reservation Ukrainian resource, comp. schemes for solving the problem, as they are not suitable in Russia, since we have different legislation and other mobile operators, namely: Kyivstar, MTS, Life.
To make it clearer what I mean, I’ll give you an example: you’ve all seen TV ads when people are asked to receive a ringtone or a toy on their phone after a subscriber sends an SMS with a code to a certain short number. After sending SMS, a certain amount is withdrawn from his account and the content ordered by him comes to the phone.
Four links are involved in this process: the subscriber who sends SMS, the person who provides the content, the intermediary company that provides the payment service via the mobile and the mobile operator itself.
In our case, approximately the same thing happens. We are content providers and work with a large intermediary company.
Our net monthly income on micropayments is 12 thousand UAH. - this is about 1500 dollars. USA. 1/3 of this amount, we are forced to pay an intermediary - i.e. 500 dollars and another 500 cu mobile operators themselves.
Total for the year from net profit - i.e. of the money that our users directly pay through SMS, we lose almost 100 thousand UAH - which is equal to about 12 000 dollars.
After thinking about how to increase our income, bypassing both the intermediary company and the operator, we decided that in principle this is technologically possible. BUT - the question arose of cashing out funds.
Having rummaged on the Internet I found mean information that in principle it is possible to cash out, but if it is a more or less large amount - it can be cashed by WebMoney representatives - but they charge 50% for this - that you will agree too much.
If small - say 10-30 dollars - then our people cash them out at people who replenish their mobile phones at the metro and at stops. Those also take a percentage, but small - but you must agree in my case this is not an option.
Well, I also read that officially Ukrainian operators do not provide services for cashing money with a mob. bills.
There are no other convenient and quick ways for micropayments to be paid for by the user, except by SMS at the moment - as I understand neither in Russia nor in Ukraine - because the vast majority of users do not have Web-based wallets and credit cards of the Visa class that could to make such payments over the Internet.
Secondly, payment by SMS is very fast and convenient (especially in the case of micropayments, rather than buying household appliances, books), a mobile phone is always at hand practically from it you can go to the site and pay for the content from it.
In the end, I have a question - who faced this problem? Who and how solved it? And what are the alternative options for micropayments, except for web-mani and bank cards, and not to give 75% of your income?