The Last Laugh: credit card payment situation still unresolved, future uncertain

[The Last Laugh]

Hello everyone,

As some of you may know, PayPal closed my account last month. While I assume it has something to do with my business being somewhat adult-oriented, they never bothered to provide me specific reasons, no matter how often I made the request by email and by phone. This decision is totally unfair, but not surprisingly, there's absolutely nothing I can do about it.

The consequence of this is that I can't accept credit card orders anymore, which is a huge problem for me. One can still pay with cash, a money order or a check, no problem there, but I realize that from the point of view of many potential customers it's just not the same.

PayPal's decision turned out to be a nearly mortal blow. It may still be, actually. Without a credit card payment option my sales have dropped to almost nothing. Even my most recent videos has sold extremely poorly over the last month.

I've tried very hard to find another company to handle my credit card orders, but the other companies are either prohibitively expensive, don't deal in tangible goods (like DVDs), don't tolerate "adult" sites (no matter how harmless the material is) or feature a process that's in some way inconvenient for the customer. It's a real shame that PayPal, which otherwise has an ideal system, has such unfair policies. Things were going rather well for The Last Laugh until recently. Sales were quite good and I was finally managing to release videos more regularly. Then PayPal hit and now I'm almost dead. If I can't find a solution, I may have to close down, possibly for good. It's very frustrating to fail because of such a silly, ignorant, close-minded decision.

Anyway, I'd like to say that while it's possible that I'll come up with a solution in the near future, it may not be ideal, and it's very possible that I won't find a solution for a long time. I may have to struggle to survive on mail payments (cash, money orders and checks) until I determine that The Last Laugh simply isn't viable as a business anymore.

I'd also like to say once again that I'm deeply sorry about the situation. It's disastrous for me, but I understand that it's also very inconvenient for the customers, so please accept my apologies.

Now, if anyone has any idea how I can get out of this mess, please write me with your advice. A number of suggestions have turned not to be possible in my case, but who knows, maybe someone has an idea for something that I've missed. Thank you.

 

[phillyfttk]

Perhaps your fellow producers can offer some advice as to how they're able to use credit card payments. It would really be a shame to lose your services however since you're easily the best around right now, in my opinion.

 

[The Last Laugh]

Perhaps your fellow producers can offer some advice as to how they're able to use credit card payments. It would really be a shame to lose your services however since you're easily the best around right now, in my opinion.

Thank you. I certainly wouldn't say I'm the best, but that's very kind of you to say.

I've actually contacted a couple of other producers that I'm friends with. They were happy to give me some pointers. Unfortunately, what works well for one person doesn't necessarily do the trick for another other.

Take CCBill, for instance. It's an important company, very well known and reputable, enough that I could overlook the large percentage they take on each transaction, as well as a couple other little disadvantages that wouldn't be deal killers. However, they don't deal in tangible goods, only digital material (like clips). I called them and they confirmed this. Now, it's possible that I'll offer downloadable clips one day, but even then I'd really hate to drop physical videos altogether. I guess I could live with giving up VHS eventually (though not now), but I really like the DVD format, and if at all possible I intend to offer it for as long as The Last Laugh exists. To be honest, I'm not a big fan of the clip format, even though I realize it's very popular nowadays.

Anyway, right now I only have physical videos for sale, so CCBill is not an option. Other companies have other features that make then inappropriate for me, even though they're great for others.

One company I've been somewhat considering is YowCow.com. Someone pointed me in that direction and it's also recommended by one of the main anti-PayPal sites as an alternative to PayPal. It does seem very similar, with very advantageous fees (no starting or monthly fees, small percentage taken on transactions). I could easily implement it myself, as the button and cart system is almost identical to PayPal's. It's also a lot more tolerant of "adult" sites, as long as they're legal. Seems like a pretty good service.

Unfortunately, it does have a few down sides. As a Canadian seller I couldn't transfer money directly to my bank account. I'd have to receive checks. Not a big deal, but annoying. But what's more important is that I'm still not sure how simple the process would be for the customers. Oh, it wouldn't be very complex, but possibly a bit more than with PayPal, and one would have to become a member. It's the same with PayPal, of course, but at least PayPal is a well known service, and many people are already used to it. If I were fairly sure that not too many people would mind becoming YowCow members and possibly deal with a process that a little more of a hassle (not much, but enough to be annoying), I'd quite probably use that service. But as it is, I'm not sure. I need more info about the ordering process. If anyone is familiar with YowCow, I'd be happy for the feedback. Same for any other alternatives that come to mind.

 

[toneus79]

Hang in there man. Don't throw everything away because of something that will eventually get resolved.

Unfortunately I only buy downloadable clips (due to threats and confiscations from UK Customs & Excise in the past when I was buying from Cal Star & Platignum), but I have always thought your preview clips were fantastic, and look forward to the day you release them. In fact as a short term measure you might try releasing a few using the 'Clips for sale' people http://www.clips4sale.com/list.html as used by Silver Cherry, TTD, etc. Perhaps they have a standard method of passing the money onto the producers.

 

[The Last Laugh]

Hang in there man. Don't throw everything away because of something that will eventually get resolved.

I don't intend to give up if there's a way I can survive, but my options seem very limited. I'm not 100% sure it will get resolved, at least not in the way that I would like. I'm afraid any PayPal alternative that I have access to may cost me some customers for one reason or another. But we'll see.

Unfortunately I only buy downloadable clips (due to threats and confiscations from UK Customs & Excise in the past when I was buying from Cal Star & Platignum)

I've never had a problem with that before, and I get the feeling that it's a rare occurence for shipments overall, but I understand your reluctance after bad past experiences.

but I have always thought your preview clips were fantastic, and look forward to the day you release them.

Thank you.

In fact as a short term measure you might try releasing a few using the 'Clips for sale' people http://www.clips4sale.com/list.html as used by Silver Cherry, TTD, etc. Perhaps they have a standard method of passing the money onto the producers.

That's an issue that has been coming up very often these last few months. I've been offered deals by clips4sale a couple of times in the past. Very tempting. However, so far I've always been hesitant because if I'm to sell clips I would much prefer to remain in complete of control of everything. As great a job as I'm sure clips4sale does, I'm not entirely comfortable with the idea of having to rely on a middleman. Selling my work is a very personal thing for me, and dealing through someone else takes something away from the experience. It's just not what I had in mind for The Last Laugh.

But now that I've lost PayPal and am in big trouble, barely making any sales at all now (despite cash, money orders and checks being perfectly valid payment alternatives), I may not have a choice. I'll think about it.

If I do decide that this is something that I want to do (albeit reluctantly), there are still problems I need to solve. As if I needed more problems. First, I'm not sure I can produce commercial quality clips that are or a reasonable size. The quality of my preview clips certainly isn't good enough to be acceptable for a commercial product, and I'm not quite sure how to improve them enough without the file size becoming ridiculously large.

Second, even if I start selling clips, I really want to go on selling tangible products. Problem is, to sell such products effectively I need a credit card payment system. Back to the original problem.

So even though selling clips is, in some ways, a tempting option, it's not as easy as that. It could take care of some of my problems, but it would also come with a whole new batch of problems.

 

[toneus79]

If I do decide that this is something that I want to do (albeit reluctantly), there are still problems I need to solve. As if I needed more problems. First, I'm not sure I can produce commercial quality clips that are or a reasonable size. The quality of my preview clips certainly isn't good enough to be acceptable for a commercial product, and I'm not quite sure how to improve them enough without the file size becoming ridiculously large.

I think on this point you might be setting too high a standard. I recently bought a Cal Star clip from Clips4sale (THE TICKLING MASTERS)called 'Alien Abduction' and the clip encoding picture quality was vastly inferior to your own preview clips. http://clips4sale.com/?212

Obviously the majority of other producer's clips on Clips4sale are of a very high picture quality. However anyone who has ever bought clips from FM Concepts off their own site, will know what poor picture quality they have (again inferior quality to your previews).

Obviously you have other issues about going in this direction, but I don't think picture quality should be one of them.

 

[The Last Laugh]

I think on this point you might be setting too high a standard. I recently bought a Cal Star clip from Clips4sale (THE TICKLING MASTERS)called 'Alien Abduction' and the clip encoding picture quality was vastly inferior to your own preview clips. http://clips4sale.com/?212

Obviously the majority of other producer's clips on Clips4sale are of a very high picture quality. However anyone who has ever bought clips from FM Concepts off their own site, will know what poor picture quality they have (again inferior quality to your previews).

I'm glad that you think that my preview clips are good enough to be commercial products (assuming they were longer and more continuous, of course), but I have to disagree. I make them fairly low quality so that they don't take up too much place or take too long to download. My latest ones have been especially low quality because I now have to host my own clips and I couldn't take the huge bandwidth use if they were larger. They're functional as previews, but I would never dare ask people money for them. Mind you, the quality wouldn't have to be increased by that much, but some improvement is definitely necessary.

I'm not familiar with CalStar's or FMC's clips so I can't compare, but I can't offer bad clips just because they might be about the same quality as those of a couple other companies. As you say, most clips on clips4sale are of very good quality. If I offered poor ones, why would customers buy them when they can get much better ones from other vendors?

No, I need a level of quality that's at least as good as what I get with my CD-ROM versions. Not awesome, but perfectly acceptable. Problem is, the clips on my CD-ROMs are about 10MB per minute, which isn't an option for a downloadable clip. I need to use a different file format or compression method. That's where I get a little lost.

Obviously you have other issues about going in this direction, but I don't think picture quality should be one of them.

I think it should. The action itself is the most important thing, but it can only be enjoyed to the fullest if the quality is good enough. I can't be a good vendor if I offer my customers a poor-looking product, especially when comparing it to the great stuff other producers put out.