Are you having trouble selling your product online? I've recently learned about a company called TrialPay, which has an interesting solution. TrialPay was founded by Alex Rampell, a young entrepreneur who got his start at age 15, when he wrote a popular software program that helped AOL users avoid losing their Internet connections.

The software was banned by AOL, but earned Rampell some great publicity. He went on to found FraudEliminator, which was sold to McAfee, and then he started TrialPay. TrialPay calls itself an "alternative payment" company, and it's growing fast: revenue was $20 million last year and Rampell expects it to double this year.

Here's how it works.

Say you’re a small company, and you have trouble convincing online shoppers to buy your product. (This is particularly relevant for companies that sell software, since consumers often expect software to be free.) Sign up with TrialPay, and at checkout, customers will see a “Pay with TrialPay” option, allowing them to choose from dozens of other offers and get the product you’re selling for free.

Say the customer chooses “Send Flowers with 1-800-Flowers.” Then, 1-800-Flowers will pay you a fee for each customer you refer. Sometimes, that fee is more than you would have gotten from selling your product; referral fees range from $5 to $200. TrialPay takes a cut of the referral fee, but doesn't charge businesses anything for signing up. More than 30 million consumers use TrialPay and the majority of companies that profit from it are small, private firms.

To see what Trial Pay looks like in action, check out this page from WinZip's website. You can also see a variation of it at Papa Johns' site; in the bottom right corner, you'll see an ad that says "Join Netflix and get a $10 Papa John's gift card."

Have you found any good ways to boost your online revenue?

Read more about TrialPay here.
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