Just cross-posting an email that I sent out via email today:
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Hello, UMD Store Owners.

I just wanted to touch base with you about what's been going on recently in the UMD Download Store system. We have recently switched payment processors. AlertPay has lost its ability to process credit card transactions for "our type of industry." Even though UMD's history insofar as chargebacks and customer service is spotless, their problem lies outside of any doings of our account with them. Apparently, their banks are giving them a hard time with adult processing. While they have put forth excellent effort and initiative in contacting me, staying in touch, and trying to stay transparent with the issues they're facing, the bottom line is we need credit card processing. NOW.

Just before last weekend, I finished integrating a new payment processor into UMD: Epoch. Epoch is the billing processor who I have used for iWam.com for about 8 years now, and also UMD Premium membership billing for several years as well. While payment processing has always been available though them, I did not use them for the download stores because their rates are higher. As a result of using their services now, I needed to raise UMD's take of each sale. Now, all producers will receive a 70% commission on every sale (still no hosting or bandwidth charges, or storage fees). The benefit is that we are finally able to take Visa AND Mastercard, and a bunch of other major credit cards, too. The only one we don't take now is American Express.

As a result of this upgrade, over the weekend we have seen a blast of sales like never before. I am projecting (don't quote me on this though) that our weekly sales should double. Even producers who have not made a sale in weeks are starting to get some transactions coming their way! Go check your stats folks, it's kinda ridiculous. This is obviously mostly due to being able to take both the biggest credit cards instead of just one. But the other reason is the simplicity of making purchases through Epoch: Once a customer goes through the slight hassle of putting his/her credit card on file, they won't have to do that again. On every subsequent purchase, the user only needs to enter his/her 3-digit security code from the back of their credit card, and that's it: Check-out is done and they are enjoying their downloads. So making purchases on UMD now boils down to typing in 3 digits, and the sale is complete. It's all secure, as UMD and Epoch's pages are all secured with SSL, and UMD keeps absolutely no credit card information in its databases.

There is nothing different for you to do. You will still get paid every Sunday via your AlertPay account. Just keep the great downloads coming, and I'll do everything I can to promote them all over UMD, and I'll keep the store system advancing to the next level.

Speaking of next level, a major overhaul of the main Downloads page is underway. Right now it's set up to mostly highlight the latest and best sellers, but there will be more emphasis on older scenes, too. I will still highlight the models, and make download reviews more prominent.

Before I go, I have some tips on how you can increase your sales. The biggest thing is that you should go and add all of your models into the system. Just go to your profile, click on My Models, and upload a [clean] picture and some basic bio information for every model that appears in your videos. After that is done, simply edit each of the scenes on your download store, and click the box next to each model who is in that scene. UMD will take care of the rest: Starring models will be shown on the download info pages, as well as on her own bio page (which lists all the scenes she's in). His/her fans will be able to quickly find (and hopefully buy) all the scenes their favorite model is in. I am also adding model information to the large scene listings. Fans really find and follow their favorite models, so why not dedicate some time to adding them to the system so people can find them!

Another tip is to promote your scenes on UMD forums. UMD's Download Store system is set up to make it easy to plug your latest releases (and perhaps an old release now and then) right on the forum. Used judiciously (and without spamming or over-doing it), it can be a really powerful tool.

So enjoy this big wave of sales, and let's cross our fingers that it doesn't ever die down! I have lots of fun updates coming in the coming months, so watch out for them. And hit me up if you ever have any problems or questions or comments.

Peace,
Messmaster