Solavei is treading in to some dangerous territory here if you ask me, but the decision has been made, so everyone needs to embrace it and live with it. Beginning yesterday, users can order a 10 pack of SIM or MicroSIM cards direct from Solavei for $20. These cards can then be given to users to instantly sign them up and bring them onboard, rather than waiting the 2 days for the SIM card to ship from Solavei directly. I understand the instant gratification thing, but to me it seems like an opportunity for bigger users to suck perspective clients away from the smaller ones. The larger groups just call the small guys cry babies about this one, but after having 5 years of MVNO marketing experience behind me, I know the systems and I know how they work.
The basics of this program are simple: order the SIMs, get a contact, give them the SIM which they will activate online for the $29 fee (once the current promotion is finished) and Solavei ends up making a bit more cash off the deal. I say this because Solavei will make the $2 is costs you to purchase the SIM, saving on shipping which is free to end users but costs the SIM seller $5 per order, then also ding the end user for the $29 SIM charge. Good business plan for maximizing the profits on those cards if you ask me.
With that said, being able to instantly give away a SIM card to a user may cost us $2 a card, but the cell industry is all about instant gratification. Teaming up this deal with a $100 T-Mobile prepaid phone might just be the prodding that some people need to get going and help you build out those Trios faster. If not, many prepaid locations will soon be stocking Solavei cards and helping spread the name a bit, even if it does cost you a few users in the long term.
Just remember, if you are working on your contacts and they happen to grab a SIM card from a third party store for the instant gratification thing, they can still sign up and activate that card via your signup link. Hopefully this will discourage shops and larger resourced users fromm poaching your contact list.
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