Nearly 75% of mobile phone users worldwide send text messages (SMS). This means that nearly 2.5 billion people have the ability to access and participate in a premium SMS payment technology. From a business standpoint, SMS payment solutions can increase your ability to provide the best services to your customers while increasing your potential revenue by deploying premium SMS services.
Commerce has been around ever since human civilization began and payment methods too have kept evolving with time. From the days of barter trade to the modern day money, man has continuously developed various methods of payment for goods and services on sale. Text message and SMS billing is one of the latest inventions which operates on a cell phone allowing users to pay for their goods and services through their wireless handsets. This is a simple yet effective and secure technology that requires you to have an account with your favorite SMS Billing service provider before you can transact business.
So how can mobile payment work for your business?
Mobile payment is a pretty simple process. All you have to do is to set up a payment gateway on your website using a script provided by the SMS billing service provider and then use it to sell or give access to content on your website. Your visitors send text messages to a specific short code (usually 4-6 digits) following specific instructions. If your visitors decide to make a payment, they will have to send a text message and their account with the mobile service provider will be debited a certain amount of money. When the user sends Premium SMS, the carrier will get its share and you, the website owner or seller, will get the rest of the amount. SmsCoin charges a mere 3-5% revenue from each message that your users send.
Evolution of premium SMS solutions
If you’ve been around, then you probably have noticed about the rapid advancement that technology has undergone over the past decade. The revolution of computers and communication technology has had a tremendous impact on life in general and how business is done in particular. This has made it inevitable for businesses to integrate these technologies into their day to day operations in their quest to boost their revenues. SmsCoin is one such technological solution introduced in the summer of 2006 by Aggregator Ltd Company with initially only two people involved. SMScoin has greatly shaped the future of transactions via telecommunication channel through their innovative and user friendly services.
Here are some of the services offered:
- SMS key
This is a universal PSMS platform that you can use for a web project of any kind and you can use it to provide your users with certain contents on your website which they can access after sending SMS with certain price set by you from a wide range of rates available.
- SMS donate
This is a fantastic service that you can use to collect donations for your website development purposes. You can never use this service to provide your users with any kind of service. It is a very simple SMS payment system ideal for those who are not tech savvy and yet can not afford to hire a programmer for their websites.
- SMS bank
This is a payment mechanism based on the concept of a “payment gateway” which is composed of a simple form stored in your website. When activated, your users initiate a transaction and are directed to the payment page, stored on SmsCoin servers. Once the user confirms the process they are taken back to your website. At any time, users can cancel the process if they so desire.
An as example, say you have a service that works on the basis of credits, an online gaming site (membership site). Depending on the number of credits, users can have access to various levels within your website. The more credits the higher they can access other levels. Users interested to do so can increase their account balance and add credits by sending funds to you via this payment gateway.
- SMS content
This is a service that allows you to sell links to download mobile content to a mobile phone through your website without having to participate in any affiliate program or invest in anything. With this service, you can generate additional revenue from your project by extending its functionality.
- SMS chat
With this service, visitors of your website can send text messages which are displayed on your website in real-time mode. Thanks to SMS chat, you can organize chats, SMS voting, inquiries, keep record of complaints and feedback and many other things.
- SMS transit
This is a service that allows you to work on all rates available in SmsCoin supported countries by defining all the aspects of work in your system on your own.
- SMS safe
With this service, you can simplify your customers’ payment process by accepting $30 payments in a single transaction. Better still, your users do not have to enter a password every time they are confirming a transaction.
There are two major benefits of subscribing with premium SMS services for your business. First, all payments and transactions occur in real time reducing time lost through such process as verifications as witnessed in other payment methods. Second, payment process is simple as all your customers need to do business with you is via a cell phone, something that has become part of almost everyone’s life. Your existing or potential customers do not need to have other forms of payment or credit cards to purchase from you. This is particularly interesting when you are interested in increasing you sales volume. Presently SMScoin supports over 80 countries world over, and counting.
Related Posts
The Importance Of Trial And Error On Just About Anything, Taking Action
Increase Your Competitive Advantage With Good Credit Card Processing
Making Money Online Selling Exclusive Content, MediaPass
Making Money Online, Alternative Niches
Making Money With Amazon, Easier With This WordPress Plugin
Discount Code Website, Key Factors To Consider Before Jumping In
Making Money With AdSense? Here Is A Friendly Warning
Reality vs. Imagination in the World of Blogging
Rahul
very true, SMS can do lot of means in our life nowadays and providing the easy way also for payment.
Yes Rahul. SMS today has gone way beyond the traditional texting as we know it. It is evolving and today making transactions is just another step towards mobile sophistication. We’ll just have to see where this all is going to take us 🙂
Dana
So, it is confirmed that SMS is not only for playing the words anymore. SMS has became a great tool to improve our business. It is a good technology evolution in my opinion.
Indeed Dana. Today everything that relates to “mobile” is no longer as it was in the past. Like you said “evolution” is catching up and SMS payments is just one proof that we are still yet to see more “new” stuff coming in.
SMS and mobile communication has indeed evolved a lot from the first time it started.
But, I think that SMS payments are still good for micro-transaction, for things like browser based games, online school material and all those kinds of things that require a small fee to get. It’s the best solution as it’s easy to use and everybody feels comfortable using it.
I agree with you Alex. SMS payments are indeed a good alternative for transactions that are related to thing you gave example of. However as “evolution” is name of the game, I’m sure that soon, this will also be a preferred method for many, specially when the “mobile” arena gets even larger. We’ll see. Thanks for your comment
I’ve always wanted to give my visitors the possibility to donate to my website, but wasn’t able to because Paypal doesn’t support my country, and MoneyBookers was requesting too many paperwork!
Will definitely take a look at that site, SMS donations seems like a good idea really. Thanks for sharing DiTesco!
You are welcome Amr. Hopefully this solution will work for you. SMScoin are working in over 80 countries already. Let me know if this works out for you. I always like to have some feedback when someone uses this type of services. Good luck
Dean Saliba
I’ve always wanted to set up one of those SMS things where people sign up and you send them professional wrestling news to their phone and charge them per text.
Is this like that?
Hi Dean. If I am not mistaken, this SMScontent feature maybe the solution you are looking for. Head over there and familiar with their other services and see which one fits best. Remember, there is no charge for setting up the service. You only pay them when a user engages in a transaction.
sam
I agree with Amr. Sounds like sms donations could be a great alternative for those countries that are not supported by paypal. I look forward to hear how he gets on. Thanks
Rachel - Avaguide
So this works for phones with a line or can it work for prepaid mobiles too?
Hi Rachel. I contacted SMScoins for this matter and this is the response I got.
So really, it depends on your service provider and not SMScoins. If you can send premium SMS, then you are good to go.
Looks very useful…thanks for sharing. will recommend it to my friends. Keep writing 🙂
Thanks bro. I think this could be useful for a lot of people who want to do business without having to go to the hassle of filling up forms and stuff. Worth the try at least and providing another payment option is always good for business 🙂
neo
is this supported in philippines? it would be a nice add on for a blog
Hi Neo. According to the latest list of countries available, NO it is not yet supported in the Philippines. However, they are growing fast and I am sure that it is just a matter of time until they do. Keep it on your “watch” list for 2011.