With a tagline of “Powering the future of e-commerce,” CCBill is one of the largest payment processors in the online arena, providing processing for 30,000 sites worldwide. Founded in 1998, the company swiftly rose to the pinnacle of its market segment and is widely considered to be a “must have” billing provider by many adult website operators.
“If a porn company wants to make money online, it almost always has to go through Ron Cadwell,” news outlet CNBC recently declared, calling CCBill’s affable CEO one of “porn’s most powerful players,” and listing the company’s annual transaction processing on the high side of the billion dollar range.
During the past year or so, CCBill has rolled out a number of initiatives as part of its “It matters to you, so it matters to us” campaign.
It is a description that few in the online adult entertainment industry would question.
Part of this public profile is due to CCBill’s long history of industry outreach, with its hosting of the popular trade event, The Phoenix Forum, for the past 14 years — as well as its support of a variety of other events — such as the networking sessions CCBill hosted at the recent Adult Entertainment Virtual Convention (AEVC), and ongoing sponsorship of Cybersocket’s Morgan Sommer as a cyclist in the annual AIDS/LifeCycle charity ride.
CCBill has also been a stalwart supporter of adult industry trade groups such as the Association of Sites Advocating Child Protection (ASACP) and Free Speech Coalition (FSC), giving back to the community while protecting the industry’s long term interests.
Taking a long term business view that emphasizes stability and responsibility over taking chances can lead some observers to view the company as resting on its laurels — with occasional cries from the webmaster community concerning CCBill’s “antiquated” admin and stats system.
XBIZ wanted to know if this claim that CCBill is “stuck in the ‘90s” is deserved, or if it is indeed moving forward to conquer the challenges of our evolving adult marketplace.
Here’s what we discovered:
First and foremost, many complaints about the company’s “outdated” admin interface seem to be misplaced since a new interface was launched some time ago — with new and old affiliate and client admin areas co-existing side by side; offering enhanced features to those who seek them, or the comfort of the legacy systems for a familiar user experience.
In other words, if you don’t like the old interface, don’t use it; and if you need custom features to better your business, they may already be only a click or two away — with the updates to this popular system going more than skin deep.
During the past year or so, CCBill has rolled out a number of initiatives as part of its “It matters to you, so it matters to us” campaign, which was designed to expand support for clients and affiliates as they navigate a changing landscape while providing them with the comprehensive toolset they need to succeed.
One area of enhancement is in support services, with an Implementations Team that specializes in assisting with new account and subaccount setup and a trained 24/7 support department that offers live assistance via online chat and international toll free numbers; aiding clients with dedicated affiliate support, custom join forms and enhanced training to get users quickly up to speed.
By integrating its client and consumer support teams, with its implementations team, anti-fraud and policy review teams, CCBill is able to ensure that all questions are quickly and accurately addressed, while providing an expert foundation for all of its services — including new features such as a consumer credit system; Webhooks; and new European payment platforms, such as GiroPay and iDEAL, targeting Germany and the Netherlands, as options within the DirectPayEU system.
CCBill’s Webhooks provide real-time event-driven reporting with customizable posts that communicate a variety of events, such as new sales or any changes in consumer data as they occur. This focus on customers allows merchants to better understand the market and to retain their customers by offering incentives, such as a credit on the next re-bill of a recurring subscription, or for single billing customers, a refund of the credit’s amount — all tied to changes in subscription activity as reported via Webhooks.
Web Validate is another recent tool from CCBill that provides merchants with a flexible method of configuring their offerings on a regional and local level. Web Validate allows merchants to specify rules based on country, card type and sub-type — triggering a manual validation of targeted transactions based on the consumer’s own preferences or economic norms and regulations per region.
One example of how Web Validate aids global merchants is in the area of compliance with emerging age verification laws, such as the U.K.’s, which now require proof-of-age before someone purchases an adult oriented product or service online using a debit card. This type of use allows adult merchants to configure their business to consumers locally, while operating on a global basis.
Given all of these options, it can be confusing and expensive for new merchants to get started with processing online payments, and here CCBill is ready and willing to help out, with support and even a range of financial incentives for North American clients in 2012, such as a limited time discount on normal processing rates plus a full rebate of the $750 Visa registration fee, which is a significant expense for many new adult site operators — and with more than 60 percent of all online transactions running on the Visa network, it is not really an optional payment platform when targeting the American market and beyond.
One client that is maximizing its use of CCBill’s services is VideoSecrets.com, which integrated the biller’s sophisticated “one-click” upsell tool as a way to provide approved affiliates with a means of promoting live chat products without requiring the customer to re-enter any payment details. This profitable technique boosts impulse purchases without relying on a cross-sale or transmitting protected customer data and serves as an example of how many of CCBill’s features were originally developed in response to the needs of a specific client — then made available to other clients — providing tailor-made solutions with off-the-shelf ease.
With a growing slate of tools and the support you need to maximize your website’s earning potential, CCBill is poised to continue its market dominance through innovation and excellence — and by putting its focus on the future — a future that includes moving merchants into compliance with new MasterCard regulations before a May 24th deadline.
Regardless of the challenges and opportunities facing adult website operators in need of reliable billing services, CCBill provides solutions for today and tomorrow that’ll help you make more money. Try them for yourself and see.