Please help us with a decision.

[George Spellwin]

Dear friends and fellow athletes,

First, thank you for your support. By paying for your subscription to Elite Fitness Select, you make this site possible.

I would appreciate your opinions and advice. Since the launch of the new boards, the traffic on this site has increased from about 35,000 visitors a day to about 50,000 visitors. And the number of pages looked at (not hits, pages) has increased from about 150,000 per day to almost half a million per day.

As can be expected, the associated increase in cost to run this site has been high. We have had to add new hardware, and our bandwidth usage has roughly tripled.

We are looking for ways to bring in additional revenues to cover these costs, but at the same time, we want to be sure to preserve the energy and spirit of what we have going on here.

Any suggestions or comments would be appreciated.

 

[George Spellwin]

BigJay,

I think PayPal is a great idea. We are planning to incorporate their service into our order system.

I like you other ideas too, but we do need a way to generate revenues from the site itself and not just from merchandise.

 

[The Iron Game]

In Summing up it seems like this:

You wish for high numbers of people. The downside of this is that as a result increase in hardware is needed which costs $ and you would prefer people to pay for this rather than taking a loss and paying from the company which is completely understandable.

If you allow advertising (companies such as supplement manufacturers will want the space) this will possibly lead to a drop in sales from Mass Quantities.

Mr Spellwin youare in a very difficult position but I will have a think and see if there is anything I can think of.

The Double Edged Sword

 

[George Spellwin]

In Summing up it seems like this:

You wish for high numbers of people. The downside of this is that as a result increase in hardware is needed which costs $ and you would prefer people to pay for this rather than taking a loss and paying from the company which is completely understandable.

If you allow advertising (companies such as supplement manufacturers will want the space) this will possibly lead to a drop in sales from Mass Quantities.

Mr Spellwin youare in a very difficult position but I will have a think and see if there is anything I can think of.

The Double Edged Sword

Very true -- also, the advertising model for web sites has failed -- more and more content sites are beginning to charge something.

 

[The Iron Game]

Mr Spellwin, have you ever thought about manufacturing or buying and selling supplements that are in deman but in higher doses. Supplements such as Silymarin, a similar Liv 52 product, Vitamin B5 for acne (but is needed in such high amounts that the 500mg caps from the other co's are too small), Vitamin B 12, Alpha Lipoic Acid etc.

Just ideas.

Peace

 

[HappyScrappy]

some of the linux/free software project sites out there (and likely others but those are the ones I've seen most) use the concept of micropayments where you give money to help keep the site alive.
you give via credit card and can give any amount you want at any rate you want ($1 a year, $10 every month - whatever you want).
much like the PBS fund drives that they do, but this is continual.

this is easy for you since you already do credit card processing via your massquantities site. the only downside I can think of (other than lack of interest from some of the ingrateful shits on the board), would be that your credit card processing company that you use might have minimum amounts that it will handle in transactions - or that they fee they charge affects the same concept.

perhaps this was already suggested - there is reference to something bigjay said, but I don't see his post and he isn't on my ignore list that I know of...

 

[George Spellwin]

Mr Spellwin, have you ever thought about manufacturing or buying and selling supplements that are in deman but in higher doses. Supplements such as Silymarin, a similar Liv 52 product, Vitamin B5 for acne (but is needed in such high amounts that the 500mg caps from the other co's are too small), Vitamin B 12, Alpha Lipoic Acid etc.

Just ideas.

Peace

Excellent ideas, I will study them.

I am equally concerned about building revenue from what is going on here already, making Elite be profitable without the sale of merchandise.

 

[George Spellwin]

some of the linux/free software project sites out there (and likely others but those are the ones I've seen most) use the concept of micropayments where you give money to help keep the site alive.
you give via credit card and can give any amount you want at any rate you want ($1 a year, $10 every month - whatever you want).
much like the PBS fund drives that they do, but this is continual.

this is easy for you since you already do credit card processing via your massquantities site. the only downside I can think of (other than lack of interest from some of the ingrateful shits on the board), would be that your credit card processing company that you use might have minimum amounts that it will handle in transactions - or that they fee they charge affects the same concept.

perhaps this was already suggested - there is reference to something bigjay said, but I don't see his post and he isn't on my ignore list that I know of...

Excellent comments!

I think the idea of micropayments is a good one, but not realistic. There are both fixed and percentage charges associated with a credit card transaction, so it is hard to charge less than say $8 or $9 per month.

I do want our order system to support monthly recurring payments and also PayPal. I am working to integrate this.

Thanks to everyone for your help.

 

[BigJay81]

Well I'm not sure about this one but. Maybe

How about a Forum just for Helping people create and stay with Trainning Program I know you sell one but it is to expensive for the masses.
Maybee charge $30 and give them a diet for a month and a trainning schedule. Just an idea it would be easy to do. And if they liked it they could come back for more It would be a monthly program.

Who know its hard to make money off a site without the sales of its products.

I'll keep thinking but not a whole lot to do.

 

[1abbig]

How about books on steroids.. ie.. anabolics 2000, war, and others that are informative, magazines, such as muscle and fitness, ironman, and so forth, offer discounts on them for joining the select forums and also when purchasing some of your news letters. also the magazines can deal in other subjects as well since we have car lovers on board, hot rod issues, car classics ,elite fitness desk daily calenders that offer nutritional and body building advice on each day versus the ones with jokes and cartoons on them . or make this a complete paysite. there are options, but to find the one that will be the most sucessful will take time. how are the sales of the elitefitness t-shirts, offer a free or discounted price on them for those who join pay forums, and such. just some ideas.