Paid Services ?

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ndahiya

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Hi!

If we were to introduce paid services, what could we charge for ?

I am in favour of letting membership be *free* (as now) and any contributions to be voluntary only. This is necessary to help the network grow... But yes, we need to set in place a mechanism to collect support contributions... Ideas ?

Matrimonial is one service we can charge for. This can be implemented within a week, but we need to decide on the charges and the mechanism. Your views/suggestions plz!

Any other services that we can provide?

Regards
Nitin
 
Hi,

I think that any service should be free when it starts off. This will give it a push in terms of the number of people accessing it. This way you will get a fair idea of how many people will access the service in case you turn it into a paid one. I assume a drop by atleast 50% in terms of user hits.

Probably a better way would be to let the users get the basic information and if they are really interested in something then that is the time you ask them to shell out!!

I hope this helps
 
It reminds me of a popular village saying which goes some thing like this;

A farmer has died and his sons get together to distribute their inheritance in a peaceful way because they are good sons and have respect for the old man;

First item on the list;
1. Farm divided equally - no problem.
2. Camel - Elder brother being the Haali has been feeding it for long time so he says he will take it. O.K.
3. Buffalo - which gives milk also fed by elder brother's wife goes to him.

Younger brothers were just listening patiently and hoping to get their share of the movable property and were kind of disappointed when eldest one took the most prized possessions. So the second brother speaks;

4. Who takes the Rs. 20,000 loan which father had taken from local Bania?

5. Elder brother's reply ;

Now will some one else come forward please my turn is over.

Moral of the story is that it is difficult to find people willing to part with money. One and only solution seems like a compulsory membership or service provider's fee. Any comments Please !
 
Paid Services?

Nitin:

Matrimonial service will be most relevant to begin charging. Other options (e.g., business commercials etc.) should be looked into. A small amount membership fee will not be a bad idea at all. However, we need a formal structure in place for amount and collection procedures. How about if we start a $25 yearly fee?

Has anyone appraoched you about other relevant services through jatland?
 
I like the idea of charging for commercial and Matrimonials but don't like the idea of membership, $25 annual will be ok for people abroad but will be problem for people in india (1250Rs is still little too much for students and I think there are lots of indian students here)
I think you should charge for things which are Accessories like (music etc) but not for general membership.
Just a thought...
rajdeep
 
Very true, I had forgotten about the currency exchange as well as the financial capability of certain members (students). May be the membership can be prorated for NRJs (non resident Jats)? A token fee (much smaller for students residing in India) should still be alright for all members?
 
Yes, Sujataji is right, we should charge only from NRJ (non resident jats) .
Second viable source of money can be matrimonial ads.

But one point I would like to make is that we should not make this (jatland.com) site commercial site. We should look for the money which we spent to maintain this site.
Dagar
 
a couple of thoughts...

expenses increase to use up the available resources.. :)

on a serious note, we could do with a small corpus as well... we could possible help orgn some activity etc...

should we mandate a charge for membership ? whould a voluntary scheme work ? to instutionalize discrimination against NRJs would be undone~! :)

for matrimonials, what would be a good charging scheme ?

nitin
 
Ram Ram
We should look for voluntary contribution(s) first.
I am ready to pay one yr hosting fee also let me know if I can help you in any way to maintain this site I know little bit web programming (or is it possible to have mirror site for Jatland.com, let me know ??).
Now we should constitute a formal structure of this community site having some executive members (or may be called as active members like u, Sujataji and many more.)
These active /executive members can be assigned some responsibility(ies).
e.g.
- Collecting funds.
- Communicating with members.
- Maintain this site.
- Sending some newsletter to inform about our activities.
- Organizing quarterly or annual meeting (if possible).

Looking for more suggestions/feedback from our respected members.

RAM RAM
 
Nitin:

I am afraid until we come up with a concrete decision, this thread will go on. I think we have a general consensus now to mandate charges for Jatland membership, prorated for NRJs (Non Resident Jat Students).

This plan should meet everyone half way:

$25 for NRJs
$20 for professional Jats in India
Rs.500 (or equivalent $) for Jat students residing in India

This years' dues can be collected in the next 2-3 months allowing some time for the members. Let us also hear from other members if there are better suggestions? However, the suggestions have to be realistic, and take into account the efforts put in by the administrator, active members/and the moderators. They need time and resources to run the show? We certainly can't keep dragging on like this! Before we embark into the next steps, we need to have some structure in place for the site to survive - first things first!

Sujata
 
hi all,

hey, Matrimonial Services are the best way to start with charges services in which we may take clue from the other matrimonial services sites i.e. hindimatrimony.com for the very pricing reason...and according can have a competetive price structure here too...I would suggest the same or less charge as being levied at this site alongwith same set of services...like free basic search, profile, etc..

Further, we may go in for alliances with commercial sites to boost our hit count and in turn provide there links on our site.

Admininstrator (Jul 17, 2002 06:51 a.m.):
Hi!

If we were to introduce paid services, what could we charge for ?
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