Spam economy
result of last spamrun (five days, in euros)
[office costs, taxes and other costs not included]
result
64 orders x avg 2.5 tin x 8 euro per tin 1.280 1.280
costs
1 month bullet proof hosting 125
250.000 credits open proxies mailing 25
160 tins x 2,95 per tin 472
10 orders x 5,50 no postage charged 55
160 tins x 0,50 wrapping fee for housemate 80 -757
result
result (profit) 523
The only reason to start spamming is money. That is S. Pammer's motive too. The timing of his last spamrun is not only based on the commercially viable date; another reason is that his housemates are on vacation. That decreases the annoyance of annoying phone calls.
Sending the last series of spamruns took five days. S. Pammer thinks that this spam has been sent to 200,000 to 250,000 addresses; the other 400,000 turned out to not work. The address base used consisted of circa 52 files containing 10,000 addresses each, retrieved from the Van der Wal CD, supplemented by the working addresses destilled from previous runs. Of that supplement, only 1o% works this time. Based on my own calculations, he has sent 272,455 spams in five days time.
The body of the spam contains a link to linkcounter.be. This allows S. Pammer to make a proper estimate of the number of times that the spam mail has actually been looked at (people opening it in their e-mail program). The last day of his spam run created 26.000 link counts op. 488 people actually visited the spamvertized site, and 20 to 30 ordered. This particular run dis not give rise to many complaints by e-mail; however, more and more nasty telephone calls result.
Most orders seem to have been made on impulse: they are done during or immediately after the spam run. The maximum amount of orders per run is circa 30. The competing spammer, from whom S. Pammer copied the idea and who sells a similar product, has previously stated that he could haul in circa 40 orders per 5000 spam mails; based on the current evidence, that seems pretty far-fetched.
Customers can pay their bill in two ways. They can either put money directly into S. Pammer's bank account or pay cash on delivery. Only a few people prefer the latter method (probably because that costs another 9.50 euros extra). Of all customers who order ater a run, five to ten percent pay cash on delivery. Returning customers or customers who have found the web site through other means, usually pay via the bank. Of those who order via the site and select direct payment, a fourth apparently have second thoughts: they never pay. Customers who order five tins at once do not have to pay postage fee. On average, customers order two or three tins at a time.
The tins of meat are bought at a Dutch importer, who in turn buys them from a Belgium importer who buys them in the former Sovjet Union. The Dutch importer charges 2,31 euro per tin, excluding VAT and postage. Postage depends on the size of his order. Generally, S. Pammer pays 2.95 euro per tin, all costs included. His house mate helps him to pack orders, at the price of 50 cents per tin.
S. Pammer pays tax, too. Currently, he is awaiting the proper forms.
When he stops his spamming activities, he has 600 tins in stock. He expects to sell them in the near future, mostly to old customers. His current stock is the main reason why he does not want to remove his web site, although he will abstain from spamvertizing it in the future.
His estimated net profit after five months and 25 days of spamruns is between 2,000 and 3,000 euros. I guess the profit in fact is much lower considering the profit calculated (see table) - a "profit" without calculating many hours of labour.
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