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Founded in 2015, The Wire is an Indian nonprofit news and opinion website which publishes in English, Hindi, Marathi, and Urdu. With approximately 5 million average monthly visitors, The Wire primarily focuses on topics of development, foreign policy, political economy, politics, and science.
The Situation
Since The Wire is registered as a non-profit organization, it relies on alternate funding sources for sustaining its operations. One such source is Reader Support in the form of donations. This is a win-win for:
- The Wire - Ensures business continuity
- The Donors - receive tax benefits
However, as per Indian law, such donations are only possible by Indian citizens, and the entire payment process (of these donations) complies with this Indian law. So an international reader (citizens of other countries, Overseas Citizens of India, and Persons of Indian Origin) cannot donate to The Wire and support their efforts.
While a majority (85%) of The Wire’s traffic is from India, the remaining 15-20% is international traffic - mostly from developed countries where readers have comfort in paying for news. The Wire wanted to offer these willing international audiences the most convenient and simple way to pay for the news they access.
The Solution
The Wire was amazed by the simplicity of Fewcents:
- Readers can tip with a single click.
- Fewcents Tipjar can be embedded on every single article on the site, right where the reader is accessing the content.
- Fewcents contextually changes the currency and pricing based on the reader’s geographic location.
The Result
Fewcents Tipjar on The Wire is being received exceedingly well. Adoption has been rising every month, and in just 5 months of implementation, their Tip RPM (revenue per 1000 users) increased by 387%!
Given that Fewcents payments are highly secure, users are comfortable donating a much higher amount. Fewcents users gave an average tip value of INR 1285 (USD 17), which is 2.5x higher than the average tip value (INR 500/ USD 6.5) from users using the existing payment system. Additionally, since Fewcents Tipjar is placed on every article, almost 8% of Fewcents users are repeat donors - a number that is increasing every month.
Next Steps
Given this success, The Wire is now planning to expand into the domestic (Indian) market as well, allowing Indian readers to make support payments quickly from within the article pages.
Quote
"One-click secure tipping, contextual pricing & currency-change based on the readers’ geographic location, and including the Tipjar on every article were the deal-winners for us. Fewcents is truly revolutionizing small, à-la-carte payments for publishers and readers."
Mithun Kidambi, Head of Product and Revenue, The Wire
