邮购新娘借助网络卷土重来

    安娜塔西雅对我其实没兴趣和她结婚这事儿似乎并不太在意。这位23岁的乌克兰姑娘在我们开的私人聊天室里大胆地向我抛来一串串问题，这个聊天室每分钟要花我一美元。实际上，她好像真的喜欢我。她向我发来各种表情符号，还想知道如果我写本自传，会起个什么书名（我说，我其实也没主意）。

    我这是在AnastasiaDate.com上聊天，这算是为那些寻求海外情缘的单身人士提供“尊享国际相亲”服务的领先供应商（至于我的聊天对象的名字和该网站名字一样，这纯属巧合）。“尊享国际相亲”是传统上称之为邮购新娘（mail-order bride，是指通过婚姻中介在纸质目录、网络、电视或其他形式的广告宣传，由男性从中挑选，并借此出嫁的女性——译注）业务的全新雅号。多亏像我这样愿意付费和像安娜塔西雅这样的年轻美女——她跟我聊天也是有报酬的，这桩买卖才格外兴隆。

    邮购新娘行业的具体收入数字很难获得。但AnastasiaDate向《财富》杂志独家分享了它的销售和增长数据。2012年，这家公司挣了1.1亿美元。2013年，它预计自己的营收会达到1.4亿美元。它的用户增长情况更是惊人：2012年其网站流量增长了220%。网站目前用户有400万人，每年在该网站累计消耗的时间达到3.6亿个小时。仅在3月，它的访问量就达到了260万次。

    AnastasiaDate并非一枝独秀。全球化时代的到来，无处不在的在线相亲为新时代的邮购新娘企业提供了新舞台，让它们获得了前所未有的人气。据市场研究公司益佰利（Experian Marketing Services）称，前10大尊享国际相亲网站3月的访问量达到了1,220万次。相比去年同期，这个数字增长了29%——跟其他业务相对来说停滞不前的在线相亲网站相比，这个增幅十分巨大。3月，在1,400个网站中，AnastasiaDate是排名第29位的最受欢迎的在线相亲服务网站。而且，它相信还有增长空间。公司首席战略官马克•布鲁克斯表示：“我认为还有大量未释放的需求。人们正在认识到，还有比Match.com更大的空间。”

    不过，为了获得布鲁克斯所希望的增长，这家公司必须设法消除邮购新娘业长期以来挥之不去的不良名声。这个行业通常的做法是虚构一些经济状况不佳的恨嫁女形象，或是一些一心想找个传统型老婆（也就是百依百顺型）来料理家务的美国男性。所以毫不奇怪，现在这个蒸蒸日上的行业正努力让自己有个好名声。在布鲁克斯看来，国际相亲服务现在的体面程度可谓如日中天——这和在线相亲业早期的情况几乎如出一辙，直到人们把它看成仅仅是另一种交往方式为止。他预计，美国女性最终也会用这个网站，男女经济差异也会逐渐消失，但这一天真正到来可能有点遥不可及。而现在，AnastasiaDate正使尽浑身解数要让自己的运作模式成为主流。不过再主流，也只能是从不发达国家输入新娘而已。

    Anastasia doesn't seem particularly concerned that I'm not interested in marrying her. The 23-year-old Ukrainian is gamely answering questions in our private Internet chat room, which is costing me about a buck a minute. In fact, she seems to like me. She's sending me emoticons and even wants to know what I would title a book that was based on my life. (Not really sure, I tell her.)

    I'm on AnastasiaDate.com, the leading provider of "premium international dating" services for singles looking for love abroad. (Her name being the same as the site's is a coincidence.) Premium international dating is a new name for what's traditionally referred to as the mail-order bride business. And thanks to people like me willing to pay to talk with beautiful young women like Anastasia -- who was paid to respond -- the trade is doing pretty well.

    Revenue numbers for the mail-order bride industry are hard to come by. But AnastasiaDate shared its sales and growth statistics exclusively with Fortune. The company made $110 million in 2012. In 2013, it projects it will make $140 million. Its user growth is even more impressive: The site's traffic grew 220% in 2012. It now has four million users, who cumulatively spend some 360 million hours on the site per year. It racked up 2.6 million visits in March alone.

    AnastasiaDate is not alone. The advent of globalization and the ubiquity of online dating has set the stage for new-age mail-order bride companies to gain unprecedented popularity. According to market research firm Experian Marketing Services, the top 10 premium international dating sites drew 12.2 million visits in March. That's a 29% uptick from March of last year -- a huge increase compared to the rest of the relatively stagnant online dating industry. In March, AnastasiaDate was the 29th most popular online dating service period, in a category of 1,400 sites. And the company believes there's room for expansion. "I think there's a lot of pent-up demand," says Chief Strategy Officer Mark Brooks. "People are realizing that there's a bigger world than Match.com."

    To achieve the kind of growth Brooks is hoping for, though, the company will have to overcome the deep stigma surrounding the mail-order bride industry. The practice conjures images of women desperate to marry out of failing economies; and of unappealing American men looking for a traditional (read: submissive) mate to keep the house clean. Not surprisingly, the growing industry is attempting to shine up its reputation. Brooks sees international dating today as being on the cusp of respectability -- in much the same way online dating was in its early stages, before people accepted it as just another way to meet someone. Eventually, he foresees American women using the site and predicts that the economic disparities will fade away, but that may be a long way off. For now, AnastasiaDate is making a big push to go mainstream with its current model, as mainstream as courting younger foreign women from underperforming economies can really get, that is.