Credit System Addon

A Credit System addon is a major step forward for the entire line of WorksForWeb classifieds software products. It is an optional free module designed for all products v.6.2.0 and above, with its major purpose to replace the straightforward payment by cash for website services and options.

The credit system is a convenient means of collecting payments for website services. There is no real money exchanged in the process, but rather, tokens or “credits” (previously purchased with real money or added by admin) are exchanged for services, options, listing enhancements or fees.

Overview

Starting from v.6.2.0, the developers introduced two alternative payment mechanisms. The new payment mechanism(built-in by default) comprises a basket capable of combining multiple listing activations, options, and plans into a single shopping cart; and a redirect to the payment processing engines for immediate cash/card/Paypal payments. In a nutshell, this system operates like a regular e-commerce solution when it comes to payments for website services.

What we call “the credit system”, namely, the system of purchasing services and options with credits, used to be the default monetization mechanism for all earlier releases. Being extremely flexible and versatile, it combined payment functionality and advanced marketing capabilities.

However, a certain portion of our customer base strive for a more straightforward “pay-as-you-go” setup. As a result, the credit system has become an independent optional module that can be installed and activated via the admin panel by a classified website admin.

Marketing Benefits

Volume-Based Discounts

First, the admin can manipulate prices for credits, charging more for fewer credits that customers buy, and giving discounts for higher quantities of credits. This is a straightforward method of using volume-based discounts to incite customers to spend more on a website, and it does work well with careful planning and consideration.

Reduced Payment Commissions

In addition to the above consideration, the website owner could reduce the overheads. Each of the small payments made by customers is processed by online merchant service providers or authorized resellers such as Paypal or 2CO. These service providers are normally charging on the per-transaction basis. Instead of having the customer to pay several times for varying services and options, and the website owner paying a fee on each of these payments, the customer is offered to pay once to charge up his/her credit balance.

Consequently, a commission is collected only once. Following this single payment, all internal transactions are handled without any fees, therefore, the overall amount of commissions would be much lower. This setup gives owners huge savings on payment fees, which normally eat up a large proportion of website revenues (typically from 2% to 30% of the total payment amount depending on the payment scheme chosen and the service provider).

With a certain credit balance on the account, customers have an added benefit of being able to instantly activate any service or option they can afford. The only time the customer would need to make the payment is when he or she is replenishing the credit balance.

Promotions

Credit system is a great promo tool as well. The website owner can attract new users by offering them sign-up credits or setting a certain startup balance for users of certain group(s). Holiday or birthday gifts, prizes, raffles, or other marketing campaigns are just a few ways for the admin to enhance customer confidence, to induce customers to list more items or enjoy certain premium features. Obviously, adding some credits to account holders is an awesome way to simply say “Thank you for your business!”

Installing and Configuring the Credit System Addon

The installation process is very straightforward and is the same for all our addons. Again, his module would work with all WorksForWeb products version 6.2.0 and above.

First, the admin would have to ensure the addon is in the list of all addons (System Configuration->Module Manager page), and then install it by clicking the relevant button.

After the installation, the admin would need to turn it on by changing the "Payment Method" setting to "Credits" (Admin Panel -> System Configuration -> System Settings -> General).

When the appropriate payment method is chosen, all prices for options, packages and Membership Plans would be rounded off (for example, the price of $1.3 would turn to $1).

Credits are sold in packages. The admin can set prices per credit for each package separately in the Payment Management → Credit Packages area of the admin console. There is no limit on the number of credit packages or the quantity of credits in each package.

Additional Information

Additional information on the addon and its settings is available in the relevant section of the User Manual.

This addon is not included in the default software package, and is installed separately. However, the Credit System Addon is provided free of charge. Please contact our Sales team to learn more about it and download it for your classified website.

Every addon that we are offering is designed for seamless operation ONLY with the default website. We do not guarantee that the addon will work with websites that have code/template modifications made by yourself, us, or any third party due to possible compatibility issues. We would be happy to try and resolve such an incompatiblity for additional cost as a customization. For any inquiries on the above, please contact our Sales team.