Germany is one of the worldwide top markets when it comes to traffic and profits in the adult industry. The most profitable services these days are webcams and dating.
When it comes to webcam business, a lot of things have changed the past years. But on the other hand a lot of things are still the same as in the early days.
Don't get me wrong — I think free cam sites are great. Users have the option to do a “testride” first before spending more. But it doesn’t seem that this is something German users want.
Germany doesn’t have a porn star scene. For whatever reason, German consumers don’t like the “high-glossy” porn star. You would never meet such a performer, let’s say in a local bakery or in the line at the checkout in a supermarket.
In reality “amateurs” dominate the German scene. Amateurs are producing their own contents, uploading them to different amateur sites and working in front of webcams. A lot of them are producing content with their fans. The fan has the option to meet his favorite performer, fuck her and the only thing he needs to do is signing an agreement that the performer is allowed to use the video material.
In Germany consumers prefer amateurs — a person, who could be your neighbor, who could stand right behind you at the checkout or could be seen on a university campus.
More than 95 percent of the 15,000-plus chat hosts working with us are working from home, and a lot of them are well known within the user base. And many times, users recognize if hosts are sending from home or if they’re located in a studio.
But that’s not the only case why X-Visit.net prefers hosts working from home. Currently we are focused on the German-speaking market but the majority of cam studios are based in Eastern Europe or Latin America. So we wouldn’t get enough models speaking the German language properly.
Working with hosts directly provides another big advantage for us. We are able to motivate them. And I am not just talking about the revshare they are getting for chatting with clients.
I have seen a lot of studio performers look bored when consumers enter their room. They are not motivated enough, earning a lousy fixed salary and are expected to do a mega-performance in front of the cam, encouraging clients to provide tips or enter a private session.
We don’t want that; we want to provide an amazing experience to every single customer.
He should fall in love with the performer and come back for more. That’s the reason why we pay bonuses to performers depending on several factors. Holding time per-chat session, user rating after the chat and many more.
Of course this means more administrational work for us, but in the end it’s totally worth it.
There are different billing scenarios, depending by country. Just in our three main markets we are offering 15-plus different billing methods because users have their own preferences.
Some consumers don’t even have a credit card, but they want to pay. And believe me, the credit card penetration is way beyond compared to the penetration in the U.S. Such users have a lot of alternative options to pay.
If they can’t or don’t want to use credit card we offer direct debit. If they don’t want direct debit they can use pay safe card or even dial a 0900 premium number, where they pay a certain amount per minute.
Having said that, we all love to collect user data. Once you have their email you can send them interesting information about your product. But a lot of people prefer to remain anonymous. They don’t like to provide their email address or any billing information.
So we offer consumers the option to join our site and chat with hosts via a 0900 premium number. They simply call that number and get a computer-generated code which they have to enter on the website and as long as they don’t hang up, they can chat with all the performers they want.
If we wouldn’t offer that kind of billing system we would lose a huge amount of our revenue. We hate to offer it but we have to accept that there is a certain audience who prefer it.
But it’s not just about the complex billing infrastructure we have. Every website in the adult space has to deal with chargebacks.
Christian Kreul is senior sales manager at Visit-X.net, one of the largest webcam platforms in Germany, Austria and Switzerland. The company was launched in 1999.
