I was going through my emails this morning, and came across a ton of emails, due to being the new quarter, for subscription notices that were coming due, which got me thinking about how do new/smaller business that have services/products based primarily online manage their customers who don't pay? From what I have seen, it's mostly a light/electric bill method: you don't pay, you get cut off. However, wanted to see if any DP members could share their experiences if they manage any collection practices for their sites.
Yes, it's easy - you don't pay, you get cut off. If you want to get paid, just offer a best services and best prices. Also don't forget about discounts and sales. And forget about online (or off-line) dept-collectors - it's not real)
Past experience working in hosting companies, owning several I would say yes a very big one. There are often hosts complaining of it, people think because it is online it does not matter. So if something was there for hosts to most likely get their money, that would be worth paying for
You can say so yes however, long term business models would work better with regular monthly income, if people pay every year you need to wait and get signups constant all year round big ones, to make a good wage
The biggest problem I have seen in the past is credit card chargebacks. The credit card company nearly always sides with the consumer, regardless of how much documentation (copy of id, signed authorization letter, etc) the merchant may have. In every case I have ever seen, the merchant closed the users account and just washed their hands of the loss. Performing collections on these accounts could be very lucrative, or it could also be a huge waste of your time -- not sure which.