Welcome Guest, Not a member yet? Register   Sign In
Family Pack Discounts - Is There a Way to Do This And Avoid People Reselling Their Passwords?
#1

[eluser]Vik[/eluser]
Here's an interesting question. I got an email today from someone interested in using my website, asking whether there was a discount for multiple people in one household subscribing to the site. I think it's a great idea.

The question is, is there a way to do it? How do I make sure that the multiple people using the site, are really in the same household?

Has anyone ever seen a way to do something like this?

Thanks very much in advance for any info.
#2

[eluser]TheFuzzy0ne[/eluser]
Short of asking for them to fax you proof, I don't think it's possible.

I think you need to work on a referral scheme. That way it's fair, and doesn't matter whether or not the users are in the same household.

May I ask what you Web site actually sells? If I can understand that, I might be able to offer a more suitable solution, as I'm just guessing here.

EDIT: D'oh! I just noticed your signature. I need to have a think and get back to you.
#3

[eluser]TheFuzzy0ne[/eluser]
Yeah, I definitely think a referral scheme is the way to go. For every person someone refers to you, you could apply a 10% discount to their package so long as the person they referred is paying you. I don't know you're business model, but I can't see why you shouldn't be able to apply infinite discounts recursively. So let's say you charge $10 per month, and someone has referred 10 customers:



They'd then be getting the service for $3.48 per month, but you'd be making an extra $100 from the other 10 customers.

$10.00 - 10% = $9
$9.00 - 10% = $8.1
$8.10 - 10% = $7.29
$7.29 - 10% = $6.56
$6.56 - 10% = $5.9
$5.90 - 10% = $5.31
$5.31 - 10% = $4.78
$4.78 - 10% = $4.3
$4.30 - 10% = $3.87
$3.87 - 10% = $3.48

And here's the function that will work it all out for you.

Code:
function get_discounted_fee($monthly_fee=0, $discount_percent=0, $referred_customers=0)
{
    if ($monthly_fee > 0 && $discount_percent > 0 && $referred_customers > 0)
    {
        $monthly_fee = round(($monthly_fee / 100) * (100 - $discount_percent), 2);
        $monthly_fee = get_discounted_fee($monthly_fee, $discount_percent, $referred_customers - 1);
    }
    return $monthly_fee;
}

I hope I haven't overstepped my boundaries here, I just thought it might be a good idea. Rather than targeting discounts at families, you can give everyone the opportunity.
#4

[eluser]Vik[/eluser]
That is a great idea! Thanks very much for this excellent suggestion.
#5

[eluser]Dam1an[/eluser]
I think TheFuzzyOnes referral scheme is definatly the easier way to go, as if you try to implement the multi user licencing, people will find a way around it, whereas this way, they have an incentive to get more people using the site
#6

[eluser]drewbee[/eluser]
What about using 1 credit card to pay for multiple accounts? While it wouldn't keep people from outside the house hold registering multiple accounts with that credit card, the likely hood that people give away their credit card information to others to get a cheaper discount would be a bit odd.

Have a parent account to which houses the credit card payment. From this parent account, they can setup additional accounts and you can give a % discount based off of the number of accounts in this parent account.

This would mean:
- Easy management of payment for the user as well as him being able to add/remove accounts for the discount as needed
- You will have less processing fees (1 charge vs total accounts in a household (aka credit card)).

Things that could be looked at negatively:
- New Interface needed to manage accounts
- No discount available if users want to pay separately.

Hopefully this helps. FuzzyOne's is a good start too.
#7

[eluser]kgill[/eluser]
[quote author="Vik" date="1240522579"]Here's an interesting question. I got an email today from someone interested in using my website, asking whether there was a discount for multiple people in one household subscribing to the site. I think it's a great idea.

The question is, is there a way to do it? How do I make sure that the multiple people using the site, are really in the same household?

[/quote]

Does it matter if they're in the same household or not? Why not just offer a group discount, they purchase some number like 3 or more subscriptions at the same time they get x% off the order. The whole idea of a group discount is that you sacrifice a little profit that will be offset by the increased sales.

Using Fuzzy's numbers, Ma & Pa decide they want a subscription @ $10 each you're looking at $20, but if they see that they buy one more for little Timmy they get say 15% off, they're likely to fork out the extra so their order comes to 25.50 and you end up with 5.50 more than you would have had to start because without the discount little Timmy wasn't ever going to get a subscription.

As far as reselling - is the demand for your service that great that someone is going to try and resell accounts? Honestly, who buys black-market food diary memberships? I just don't see it being a problem and if some really do get resold the amount would be well within acceptable losses.

The idea of a referral system is good but it doesn't work for a family, for Dad to get his discount he has to register first then they need to go through the check-out again for his wife and provide his referral number and then register each of the kids providing the referral again, figuring on an avg. family of 4 that's a lot of work for 3.44 of savings.

If you really want to make things worth their while link the accounts when they're purchased together, rather than have 4 separate accounts allow the 4 to see each others lists (would also discourage reselling), with a click of a button the person responsible for purchasing groceries could have everyone's stuff pulled together in one list and thus pick up the stuff for the week for everyone. Adding to that, since most families do not each eat a different thing for dinner allow them to push out foods to everyone else's list, a "this is what I'm planning on making this week" sort of thing; that way the other family members can plan their snacks and such accordingly. Of course all these extra features would need to be weighed against the demand for such things.
#8

[eluser]drewbee[/eluser]
Doh. Basically what Kgill & I said. lol.

Why not do them both?

Referal system for promotion and cash savings,

as well as a account payment savings option in terms of Kgill & I's idea.

Sounds like a win win, as well as some sweet promotion going on.




Theme © iAndrew 2016 - Forum software by © MyBB