Aside from the massive jet lag, iDate Barcelona was cool. After the panel session on the last day, I was approached by a nice lady from CupidMedia (I suck at names and to my chagrin, can not remember hers). We chatted a bit about our niche businesses and expressed interest for exploring how we can help each other.
Based out of Australia, CupidMedia is one of those under the radar niche companies that I think is kicking some ass. Like Spark Networks, they operate a slew of niche sites that range from ethnic, interest and religious niches. Are they a competitor to World Singles? Mmm, every dating site ]kind of competes with other personals sites, albeit not necessarily directly. CupidMedia is different than World Singles from the stand point that they are a “tweener” between a matrimonial community and dating site. Their sites are free for women, and on the ethnic sites anyway, men appear to paying mostly meet women overseas. From what I was told, roughly 50% of their sales come from subscribers in the US.
CupidMedia has strengths and weaknesses. For starters, their optimizations efforts are solid, real solid. Many of their ethnic sites appear on the top half of Google searches for relevant ethnic singles related keywords. They also found a good niche for themselves as a “tweener” — there is certainly an audience for a niche site that is a cross between a dating community and matrimonial site targeting people in the US and abroad. I also love how they have localized many of their sites. On the flip side, I think that they are experimenting with several niches that I believe will bear them little return on the investment. By far and away, their Asian sites like AsianEuro.com, ChineseLoveLinks.com, FilipinaHeart.com, JapanCupid.com, KoreanCupid.com, etc., are their strongest sites.
Given our interest in tackling the Asian market, I welcome future conversations with CupidMedia for how we can work together. I have been a fan of their business for some time and hope that they attend the Miami conference. Hopefully this time, we will both have business cards.
Life is good!
-Saïd
Said,
How are you?
I enjoyed your recent article and agree that Cupid Media has a great business going. I’d like to point out that they do use GlobalCollect as their payment service provider, through one technical integration with the WebCollect platform they’re able to bill their users in every currency throughout the world.
A user is almost 25% more likely to pay when presented in their local currency, this means more revenue and less abandoned shopping carts.
More info available at http://www.GlobalCollect.com.
Thanks!
Ryan
Thanks for the comment and statistic Ryan; useful info.
Peace!
…except, this payment option doesn’t work if the member has a restricted credit card, e.g. a “national” VISA or MC. Even if the currency is their’s, it is considered an int’l transaction, and won’t work for them (they get declined). The only way around that is with a national processor (brutal to get).
Oh, also, when we were first getting into the Brazilian market (www.barbrasil.com.br), we contacted GlobalCollectUSA.com. However, they were unable to help us, as they could not process in $Reals (and convert to $US for me). I dealt with a great guy there, Shame Happach (based in San Francisco, I believe), who tried his best to help, but said they were unable to bill in $Reals and pay me in $US.
We ended up going with WorldPay.com, out of Scotland. However, those members of ours who have only “national” credit cards get declined. We are setting up direct with the card companies in Brazil (incredibly inefficient, bureaucratic bunch of morons down there).
Thks for sharing this Sam =)
Btw, I’m loving the main photo on http://www.barbrasil.com.br – sexy!
One,
-S
Yeah, it is nice, eh?:-) It rotates through 4, I think. Just hit refresh.
Said, how do you get money from your non-US based sites?
Ah, yes, it does indeed rotate. Very nice Sam.
To answer your question, we offer overseas members the same payment options as folks in the US (cc, money order, check, western union). Flirting PSMS payments.
Anything creative payment methods you offer on http://www.barbrasil.com.br?
You mean overseas members pay you in US$ to your US-based processor? What about all those who cannot pay outside their country (restricted card)?
We also offer “boleto”, essentially bank-to-bank transfer, for Brazilians. We have a corporate presence in Brazil, with bank accounts, etc. (you can’t offer this service any other way; up to 30% of our members want to pay this way).
We are also soon going to offer installment payments. e.g. you pay us $99 for a 1 year and we bill you $33/month for the first3 months. Again, how they want to pay down there.
I suspect many of the Asian women profiles on Asian Euro are fake. The women live in poor backward provinces in Philippines and Thailand etc and doubt many have access to internet or a pc or even speak good English. If they are not fake the must be using some broker as the middleman who is communicating on their behalf. Their model of paying to respond makes abuse a big issue.