Selling telephone calls in a Call Shop or Internet Café environment is a competitive business. Reselling “scratch cards” and “call back” accounts is even worse. The profit margins on calls are typically 5%-10% and the actual dollar volume of each transaction is very small; perhaps US$1 per call or US$10 for a calling or “top up” card.

If you have the skills to install VOIP technology into a network connected to the Internet there are opportunities more profitable than selling “phone calls” one at a time.

Any business of significant size typically has dozens to hundreds of telephones at each office. Multi-location businesses (or government agencies) have private data communication networks that tie offices together. Often each of these offices has a PBX system of some type so that telephones around an office share a small number of “trunk” phone lines. Any such system can be upgraded to take advantage of VOIP technology. And, when such systems become obsolete and need to be replaced new VOIP based products are almost certainly the correct upgrade path.

It takes expertise to understand these options and opportunities. If you develop that expertise there are organizations that will need your help. Even in environments where VOIP is “illegal” using VOIP to place calls between locations within a company over a private data network is often legal. Using VOIP to receive inbound calls from international destinations may also be legal even where using VOIP to place outbound international calls is not. Using VOIP may also be legal within a country to route calls between cities. For example, if a company has offices in City A and City B then it might use a private VOIP network to place calls to PSTN phones in City B from City A and incur charges much lower than if it paid the telephone company to carry the call from City A to City B.

Modern VOIP PBX systems have advanced features like integrated conference calling, call forwarding to cell phones, customer care call queues, routing of calls to customer service agents, and voicemail boxes linked to email and the web. These features used to be complex, expensive or unavailable on older equipment; in today’s new generation of VOIP based systems they are often “free” and easy to setup and operate.

It’s no wonder that today over 30% of the total office PBX market buys VOIP systems. A good reason is that over 40 percent of e-commerce transactions outside North America are initiated from mobile phones. In developing countries it is increasingly important that an organization be able to make and receive telephone calls and handle the needs of callers efficiently. VOIP telephone systems can be directly interconnected with mobile phone networks. No longer is the inefficiency of a national PSTN operator a limitation on high quality communications within an organization and between an organization and its customers. If you have VOIP expertise you can take advantage of these new opportunities. If we can be of help, just ask.

Many of our Internet Café customers ask for lower rates; especially if they see a competitor down the street offer a lower rate. Perhaps the competitor is selling calls at a lower price than we charge on a wholesale basis. Our customers make the mistake of assuming that the competitor is paying a lower price when it may be the competitor is just a smarter business person :)  Here is why.
 
Offering telephone services is a good business opportunity in a "retail" environment; but the profits are not in telephone services. Telephony is extremely competitive industry and rates for calls to certain destinations, such as the United States, are less than 2 cents per minute. If a person talks for an hour they might consume $1.20; even if they pay you $2.40 you still only earn a profit of $1.20. Sure, for some countries rates are much higher and that fact makes the telephone business more profitable. Maybe. But the fact is, with intense competition, it is very hard to make much money per telephone line, per hour.
 
However, if you are offering the service in a retail environment the value of the telephone service can be in "collateral" spending. A person making a phone call might bring a friend, who while sitting and waiting has a drink. Or they may use a computer while their friend makes some calls. If you sell groceries, or change money, or do laundry, or sell newspapers, or cut hair, whatever, the value of the telephone service is that it will bring people to your store on a regular basis.
 
This is one of the reasons we try to offer high quality circuits even if they cost slightly more. If people who come have an easy time getting a connection, and if they talk for a long time, they are more likely to spend money in your store. The profit you make selling them something will exceed the profit you make on a telephone call by a wide margin. Even if we lower prices to zero, which we cannot, you still could not "make money" on telephone calls the way you can make money in other ways. Many people making phone calls are business people. Are you selling newspapers and magazines they might want to read? Do you offer computer services? Many people making phone calls are staying in touch with family working in another country. Are you offering money exchange and transfer services? Can you send packages for them? If you are creative you will find that offering telephone services is a way to make your shop an important stop each day for busy people and you can turn those visits into profit opportunity in a wide variety of ways. The only way to make money on telephone calls is to lower the price; and when the price gets close to zero there is not much you can do. But, if you are creative you will find 1000 ways to make money selling services that offer a wider profit margin than phone calls. Use phone calls to attract people to your store, but make sure you offer a wide variety of services in addition to phone calls. That is where you can distinguish yourself from your competitor, and make better profits too.