Are we taking a wrong approach here?
 

I have been trying to focus on the $1 or free trials - the megasite passes etc. While my overall traffic is way up, my sales are not.

So, I was following the links about the Middlemen movie, and this article about the downturning economy in New Zealand caught my eye.

http://www.xbiz.com/news/novelty/100843

In essence they are noticing that condom, alcohol, tobacco, and sex toy sales are up -- people are entertaining at home, and quality is a huge part of the focus.

"Paul Pickering, senior lecturer in sales, management and marketing at the Auckland University of Technology, said when people cut back economically, it is a common phenomenon for them to reward themselves in other ways."

So, maybe we need to switch gears on some of these, and market these websites as affordable luxuries? Instead of how much bang for the buck, it is look at the fantastic quality of the content. Is this why you don't hear the fine jeweler's crying? Interesting...

sex toys maybe a good place to start, people would rather purchase from the privacy of there home that go out and buy them anyways. I also agree with the quality of sites, the people that will have the money are going to be stingier than your typical customer. The won't pay unless they are getting the quality content.

Another approach is to promote indie/"amateur" sites run by real women/couples at home. Rather than appealing to people's bargain-hunting desire, introduce them to regular people just like themselves who are also struggling in this economy selling homemade porn and trying to compete against big corporate porn sites.

People having tough times with their budgets might appreciate the human interest aspect of sites with truly personal blogs, live cams, and a real person's story. It makes people to feel good that they're sending their dollars to the individuals they're jacking off to, not some rich corporate porn peddler. When people are depressed it's also a lot more uplifting to find XXX entertainment that makes them feel more connected to people they can relate to rather than feeling distanced by dehumanizing, fakey, 100% superficial porn.

Not all people want that, of course, and regular porn is nice for the fantasy/escapism aspect. Just suggesting another way of appealing to certain bargain hunters that's almost like the equivalent of buying local by encouraging people to support mom 'n pop type sites.

Is there any real data to support that this industry is even affected that much by economic downturns? I honestly don't see why it would be. Obviously more people losing their jobs would have a little bit of an impact because that's less potential customers. But unlike buying a car or a house, people don't think logically when they spend money on things like alcohol, condoms, sex toys and even porn. They are all impulse buys and the nature of an impulse buy is that people often spend money on them whether they can afford them or not. We're in the business of instant gratification. If people acted logically while they were buying porn than most of us would be out of job.

Unless someone has some hard numbers that show definitively how the sale of online porn goes down during a recession I think it's a little early to be switching gears.

Condoms, booze and sex toys aren't things you can get for free online.

I'd post my personal stats & income & show everyone that I'm down 50% with the same traffic, but maybe everyone can take my word for it :)

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I've been pushing free & $1 trials for YEARS & they are still my best sellers.

I really wish I could convert indie amateur sites, because real amateur porn is by far my FAVORITE niche, but my surfers disagree :(

Anyone who claims that porn is not affected by the economy is either on crack or just plain dumb. Porn is, and always has been, a "luxury" item. It's what you buy after you've got your rent/mortage paid, you did your food shopping for the month, and paid all the bills.

Any economy class teaches that in an economic slump, the first things that are affected by it are the luxury items. Restaurants, theme parks, purchases of new TV/video, DVD purchases, etc. etc. etc. all go down.

My economy professor however was able to prove that the minute the economy recovers (even if it doesn't go back to it's previous level), people will feel secure again, and will more or less "make up" for what they didn't buy during the slump.

This, for example, partially explains why during the summer sales tend to be slow. Not just because people are out and about, but because they are being selective with their luxury goods purchases. In the run up to christmas, you often see a relatively sharp raise in sales, mostly because people have their holidays planned, bought what they wanted, and often there's 30 bucks here or there "left over" that gets spent on porn.

So far this trend has always shown itself in the sales of my business partners and myself. And yes, we're down too. We're still assuming (or maybe flat out praying) that the upswing will make up for it to close out 2007 on a nice note.

Fair enough :) I'm sure we can all take your word for it and I'm also sure we can mostly agree that your stats are probably a fairly decent barometer for the industry.

I'm curious to know, are your sales down all across the board or are you noticing any trends? Personally, I've seen my conversions go up for the most part but I'm dealing almost strictly in micro niches. As Trixie points out, you can get porn for free online. So maybe that's why I'm not seeing much of a difference since the micro niches are much more difficult to find.

Having said that, I do have some mainstream sites and my conversions on have always been pathetic. I was beginning to think that I just don't have the knack to convert mainstream sites but looking back on it now I'm starting to think that the problem is that I'm still taking a micro-niche approach to my mainstream sites. I tend to focus on quality and ignore the price completely. Looks like it's time for me to give up on the connoisseurs and start selling to the bargain bin shoppers. |lol|

To just say that the entire industry is down as a whole is also pretty dumb. I asked for hard numbers and as your economy professor should have also pointed out, not ALL sectors of an industry are negatively affected by a recession. Some actually increase in their profits.

As I mentioned, I have seen an increase in micro niche sales. I'm not calling that a trend. However, before everyone throws their hands up in the air and says "Aww, fuck this economy!" we should at least look at some statistics to find out exactly HOW this industry is affected rather than make some sweeping generalization and tucking our tails between our legs. Greenies gave his stats and that helps. But I also think we should look at those more carefully to see what's being hit hardest and what areas might actually be doing better, if any. If life gives you lemons, add some fucking vodka.

I'm noticing that people are still clicking, but they are not buying as much.

I just count checks, this has been my worst month in 6+ years |banghead|

I have to agree on the micro-niche sales. My sales are up slightly for the year, and the last several months have been quite good.

However, I've spent a fair amount of time this year focusing on building traffic, so that slight increase in sales is, at least to some degree, due to a 20% to 30% increase in traffic volume.

So you're saying that there isn't any particular areas that aren't affected? Free sites, $1 trials, micro niches, everything is down across the board for you?

I do see a significant drop in webcam revshare - so that is existing customers spending less on the per min camgirls. Still seeing the same number of free (no cc) signups, but less of the "free" (with cc) signups. A very slight drop in overall traffic I'd say as well.

On the other hand in the non-adult travel world my traffic and adsense revenue tells me people are still booking, or at least thinking about, those christmas holiday vacation plans.