e-Commerce: Complete. Configured. Connected.
Customer Profile: Yummy Interactive Talks Frictionless Gaming
Aug 27th
For today’s blog, I’d like to highlight one of our partners, Yummy Interactive. This week, Christopher Hennebery, VP of software distribution at Yummy Interactive, spoke with Rebecca Lieb from Econsultancy about making digital rights management as painless as possible. During the discussion, Christopher described how Yummy is now able to offer its customers a “frictionless” e-Commerce experience – with the help of Plimus.
Plimus announced its relationship with Yummy Interactive back in the middle of June at E3 and since then we’ve been working with them to offer a seamless online buying experience for gamers. Yummy Interactive’s GameShield In-Game Activation, developed with Plimus, provides game developers a way to turn the trial-to-purchase process into a hassle-free, immersive experience. This e-Commerce platform provides a one-click purchase experience, which helps maintain immersive gameplay throughout the transaction. This, in turn, gives these developers a new tool to use to increase revenue and convert trials into sales.
Rebecca’s post includes a great conversation with Christopher and provides some interesting statistics on how Plimus and Yummy Interactive are helping game developers increase their revenue streams, “We’ve seen one of our clients base a 19% increase in conversions from trial to purchase.” Click here to read the entire blog on the Econsultancy website.
Charles Born,
Head of Marketing
E-tailers Capitalize On Web 2.0 Era
Aug 18th
Despite the economic downturn, there is at least one group that’s flourishing – e-tailers. I read an interesting article the other day in Forbes.com about all the things e-tailers are doing right. The article discusses how online retailers have been able to increase revenue, while traditional retailers are struggling in the down economy. While thousands of traditional stores closed their doors last year, and notable chains such as Circuit City declared bankruptcy, forward-thinking online merchants enjoy continued growth. In her piece for Forbes, Patricia Nakache outlines how different tools have helped online merchants attract more customers than their traditional retail counterparts.
It did not surprise me that over the past 10 years online sales have grown. Since 2001, Plimus has experienced the phenomenal growth of e-Commerce first hand; however I was shocked to read exactly how much online sales currently outpace traditional sales! By targeting technically savvy consumers, e-Commerce sales have grown 19 percent per year, a rate much higher than offline sales. So how are these online merchants doing it and what can traditional retailers learn from these successful online vendors? E-tailers are capitalizing and cashing in on the Web 2.0 era, that’s how.
Social media is a tool that has become pivotal in driving viral traffic to retail websites. The rise of the social Web has created communities that are changing the online buying process, shifting focus away from brand-owned properties toward peer-to-peer recommendations on social networks. With more than 500 million active worldwide users, 56 percent of which shop online, Facebook allows consumers to advertise their purchases and encourage friends to participate in group discounts. Similarly, sites like Groupon encourage consumers to publicize deals with their friends by only offering subscribers a deal if they get enough people to sign up for the daily newsletters. Platforms such as these have already led 11 percent of retailers to report social media as their most effective acquisition tactic, and this percent will undoubtedly continue to grow.
The success of e-Commerce seems to be a light at the end of a dark economic tunnel. Plimus’ e-Commerce platform will continue to help e-tailers smooth out the online buying process and make the experience enjoyable for consumers and benefical for vendors. As Web 2.0 and traditional e-commerce continue to mesh making way for the rise e-Commerce 3.0, Plimus will be here to help e-tailers “flourish.”
Charles Born,
Head of Marketing
Photo credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/yourdon/3229663883/
Social Gaming: Who’s Spending What, Where?
Aug 4th
As the popularity of social gaming continues to grow, the marketplace for virtual products is now offering consumers more options than ever before. Today gamers can purchase nearly any type of virtual object – from elephants to guns – nothing seems to be off limits. According to a recent report conducted by market researcher VGMarket, roughly 75 percent of online gamers are using their cold, hard-earned cash to purchase virtual goods. But how and where are these consumers spending their money?
Dean Takahashi took a look at the habits of these online spenders and broke it down in an interesting article for VentureBeat. In his piece, Takahashi highlights that not only are gamers buying, they are buying often! According to the 2010 Digital Goods Report, roughly 64 percent of users make at least one purchase a month and 9 percent buy virtual goods daily. And there seems to be no buyer’s remorse here, with half of these online shoppers reporting that they plan on spending the same amount on digital goods over the next 12 months.
And there’s no shortage of sites offering virtual goods. Currently, social networks dominate the online marketplace with users reporting that they spend an average of $50 per year on digital goods through these platforms. Trailing shortly behind social networks, consumers in the multiplayer and causal gaming markets, shell out nearly $40 per year for digital goods ranging from weapons to puppets.
Surprisingly, while men play more online games and are the primary purchasers of virtual goods, women over the age of 24 report spending disproportionately large sums of money on certain products. Women surveyed in the study, reported spending an average of $55 dollars on social networks per year compared to males who only spent about $30 dollars per year. Similarly, women reported spending twice as much as their male counterparts when buying in-game currency.
It seems there is no end in sight. It will be interesting to see where this market will expand and what digital goods will emerge as a result. For now, we here at Plimus will continue to focus on making this buying experience as immersive, seamless, and enjoyable as possible for all.
Charles Born,
Head of Marketing
Photo credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/bohman/219249582/
Boost Your Career with Video Games
Jul 28th
I read an interesting article last week on Forbes.com, “How Playing Videogames Can Boost Your Career.” Here at Plimus HQ, with so many gaming companies as our customers, we look at game playing as industry research. But, for most companies, playing games while on the job is taboo. In fact, it’s increasingly common for companies to track their employees’ computer usage, sometimes even blocking access to social gaming sites on the work computers.
According to Forbes, companies are beginning to notice that employees who have played online games during their youth are actually excelling at a higher rate than their non-gamer counterparts. “We’re finding that the younger people coming into the teams who have had experience playing online games are the highest-level performers because they are constantly motivated to seek out the next challenge and grab on to performance metrics,” John Hagel III, co-chairman of a tech-oriented strategy center for Deloitte, told the publication.
Organizations like Deloitte are noticing a similarity in gaming and behaviors at work. Sources in the article indicate that by playing online games, users can develop dispositions that are extremely valuable in the corporate setting. Many online games have trial-and-error processes that require players to become accustomed to and subject to loss, failure and frustration and how to learn from the experience.
Perhaps surprisingly, these games can also spur entrepreneurship. In 2004, 22-year-old David Storey bought what was reportedly the most valuable virtual object – a virtual island in the online game “Project Entropia” – for what some called a foolhardy $26,500. But David may have the last laugh: Today he makes more than $100,000 a year from fees he charges those who hunt on his island during the game. Being a virtual property owner, David told Forbes, taught him more about business than he ever expected to learn from a game.
So the next time you’re thinking that your company’s young employee who spends his evenings stuck in front of into his home computer playing an immersive and engaging fame isn’t going to amount to much – think again. Soon enough, he could be leading the pack. Check out the Forbes article, it’s a fascinating read.
Charlie Born,
Head of Marketing
Photo credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/seandreilinger/2063651675/
Mini Update: Trade Shows and Radio Shows
Jul 23rd
The Plimus team has been on the road the past two weeks at the Software Industry Conference and Casual Connect Seattle. We’ll be posting a blog recapping the events of the shows very soon. Stay tuned! Until then, I wanted to share a new podcast with Simon Jones, our Vice President of Strategic Solutions, recorded at Casual Connect. Simon sat down with Omaha Sternberg of iGame Radio to discuss our new Buy Anyware API. Check it out by clicking here.
Photo credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/roadsidepictures/145257863/
The Social Web: This Changes Everything for e-Commerce
Jul 21st
The social web has irrevocably changed the way that web users interact with the Internet. Sharing thoughts, opinions, reviews, and personal responses to what we find online creates a vast pool of deeply valid consumer information. This empowers consumers to make choices that are informed by their peers, rather than relying on the PR and Marketing delivered by sellers. It also changes usage expectations: today’s buyer is looking for more than a storefront, a catalog, and a checkout page.
There is no greater indication of this shift than the rise of social applications, particularly games, within the wonderful world of Facebook. Zynga recently suggested that they expect to drive $1B in revenues through their games on Facebook – in 2010 alone! What drives the popularity of those games, and the resulting monetization? Sure, there’s advertising and PR, but fundamentally the drive for users to join the fun is the recommendations and comments of their connections within the network.
Simultaneously, we see the same shift occurring in the MMORPG world. The newest Lord of the Rings MMORPG is making headlines due to the announcement that it will offer Free-to-Play (F2P) access to absolutely anyone. The expectation is that monetization will happen within the game through the in-game commerce (and also that free players will convert to paid memberships, of course). The underlying assumption is high volumes of participation will drive more revenue through upsells and cross-sells than could have been captured via subscription payments alone. This is the network effect writ large!
The core of this shift is explained by some pretty simple behavioral economics: once a consumer has something, it is more valuable to them than something they simply want. When I read glowing accounts of Farmville from my friends, and watch the notifications that their farm is getting bigger and better, I’m already immersed – and want to participate more actively. Similarly, my spending patterns within my favorite MMORPG are driven by the desire to compete with my friends far more than a simple motivation to succeed.
Interestingly, casual game studios are in amazingly good shape to take advantage of this set of consumer behavior changes. Their games are already resident on players’ computers, and presence is, to re-write an old saw, nine tenths of the law. What casual game studios have known for years is that trials are infinitely better than storefronts: as soon as one is installed, the player feels they own the game. This makes it very much easier to fill in the missing links between the player’s impulse to buy, and the necessary steps to have them complete the process.
The tactics to take advantage of this are shockingly simple. During the first sale, ensure that a cross-sale or up-sale promotion is present – it’s amazing to me how high the customer-attach rate to these is, yet how few online sellers maximize their potential here. Once the sale is made, use the wrapper application you implemented to secure the game to provide messages and promotions to other items; those items can be completely free, because you know that your trials convert really well.
Go one step further, and ensure a customer creates an account somehow – add a check box to allow you to store that account in your checkout page. That way, when they come back next time, you can eliminate the friction of re-typing personal information and deliver a single-click experience. Eliminating that painful step can double your checkout conversion in a single stroke.
The bottom line is that casual game studios, while staring down the barrel of the threat of games moving to the social web, are also faced with a wonderful opportunity to build longer-term relationships with their players. Jumping in now represents a strong move to build strategic advantage in the marketplace – and don’t we all need one of those?
We’re at Casual Connect in Seattle this week – and will be presenting on this very topic on Thursday afternoon at 1pm at the Triple Door, so come by to hear more and ask your questions.
Simon Jones,
VP of Strategic Solutions
Photo credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/intersectionconsulting/4465834448/
The Dark Side of Shopping – The War against Fraud and Chargebacks (Part 2 of 2)
Jul 9th
(Read part 1 of 2 here.)
Unlike a refund, in which the merchant initiates the action and have control over it, the chargeback is an action initiated by the customer or by the bank. The result seems to be identical – the money is returned to the customer but, in fact, the chargeback has much more severe risks and consequences.
Credit card companies and processing companies supervise the merchants’ chargeback levels. Every chargeback is recorded in the merchant’s account and accumulates negative credit points which reflect the company’s ability to deal with credit card fraud, as well as the quality of the provided goods and services.
Merchants with unusually high negative credit scores (over 1% or 2% of transactions, depending on the country) may be fined and, in extreme cases, even lose their processing license.
Recent studies show that the amount of internet fraud has doubled this year, and that 50% of chargebacks are made due to credit card and payment method fraud (reason number 1 here) and the other 50% due to all the other reasons (2-5).
So what is to be done about it? Here are some tips that have proven to be efficient in avoiding chargebacks:
- Product details – let’s start with a really small tip: make sure that the product’s descriptor on the credit card statement is identical to the actual name of the product or the store. Note that if the buyer fails to easily connect between this text and the product they have purchased, there is a significant chance that they will initiate a chargeback. You must check that you aren’t transmitting the same text for every purchase and that the text represents the product as clearly as possible, so as to make it as easy as possible for the buyer to link the charge with the purchase.
- Use of anti-fraud systems – these spot suspicious transactions in advance with a fraud identification system. The aim is to identify suspicious transactions such as ones made by lost or stolen payment methods, or transactions that are made in one country with a credit card that was issued in another. There is a wide range of products and companies that specialize in spotting suspicious transactions based on the parameters gathered at the time of the purchase. These solutions have different costs according to the specific models, and of course, there is also a need to employ a transaction checking and approval staff. Small or medium sized business may find it helpful to link up to outside merchant systems such as Plimus, which take it upon themselves to carry out all fraud checks as part of the processing service.
- Product and service – matching the buyer’s expectations is crucial! Verify that your promises about the product, the service, the charge and the delivery aren’t different from reality. Make sure that the customer always knows how to contact you with any issue and that you respond to their queries. See to it that the customer knows when he will be charged and the amount of the charge (especially if the product in question is a subscription). When you don’t specify contact details on the site or on the receipt, you don’t leave the customer any choice but to turn to the credit company instead.
- Refund policy – make sure that you have a clear and flexible refund policy that is to the advantage of the customer. Advertise the policy and act accordingly. Remember that a dissatisfied customer that is denied a refund can easily get their money back by way of a chargeback – and if this happens you will suffer more damage.
In short, be realistic in your pre-purchase promises, professional in its execution, and service oriented in its aftermath. By adopting these practices your chargeback problem should remain negligible and insignificant.
Hanan Sherkin
Risk & Compliance Officer
Photo credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/andresrueda/3274955487/
The Dark Side of Shopping – The War against Fraud and Chargebacks (Part 1 of 2)
Jul 7th
“Chargeback” is a notorious term in the world of commerce, especially online. On the one hand, as online consumers, it is a tool that helps us avoid unknown charges. On the other hand, for online merchants and service providers it is a nuisance, a drain on profits, and sometimes even a threat to the business’ existence.
At Plimus, we regularly conduct in-depth investigations into hundreds of purchases that are denied by the customers throughout thousands of merchants. We try to locate the reasons for this phenomenon as well as coming up with original ways to avoid it.
Firstly, here’s a concise recap before we get down to actual tips:
Customers who feel disappointed by their online purchase aren’t necessarily obligated to wait for a refund from the merchant in question. If they have decided, for some reason, to cancel and get back the money on their purchase, a simple phone call to their credit card company or the issuing bank will make sure that their money is reimbursed and the charge is cancelled.
Since not all customers are always correct, sometimes the law that was made to protect them can become a tool of exploitation in their hands, at the expense of the merchant. From the moment that the chargeback is communicated to the credit card company, the burden of proof is upon the merchant. The money has already been taken back from them; it now it is up to them to prove that the transaction was strictly valid, meaning that it was carried out in accordance with the customer’s request and delivered what was promised.
In the online world, this proof is much more difficult to deliver since the merchant doesn’t even have a document that the customer has signed as confirmation that their purchase was delivered (this is why online transactions are called “absent purchases,” because the customer is absent from the position of the buying party).
So why are customers (or banks) initiating chargebacks?
- The transaction was executed with stolen/lost payment details – classic fraud.
- The customer decides to deny the charge due to buyer’s regret – known as “friendly fraud.”
- The customer fails to link the description of the transaction on his credit card statement either to the store where they made the purchase, or to the actual product purchased.
- The customer decides to initiate a chargeback because they haven’t received the product, or because they weren’t satisfied with the service and they haven’t been able to contact the merchant in order to solve the problem.
- The customer requested a refund from the merchant and was denied.
Unlike a refund, in which the merchants initiate the action and have control over it, the chargeback is an action initiated by the customer or by the bank. The result seems to be identical – the money is returned to the customer, but in fact the chargeback has much more severe risks and consequences.
Read part 2 of 2 here
Hanan Sherkin,
Risk & Compliance Officer
Photo credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/benhusmann/4133651889/
Plimus Enables Frictionless e-Commerce with Buy Anyware™ API
Jun 30th
This week has been an exciting one for Plimus, as we announced the availability of our Buy Anyware™ e-Commerce application programming interface (API). We believe that our new API will be an industry-changer and for the first time will enable e-Commerce to be conducted from anywhere at any time unleashing the power of the web.
The Plimus Buy Anyware™ API allows for complete control of the customer experience, whether nested within a browser, plug-in or installed software title. The BuyAnyware API is not simply a streamlined checkout process that eliminates the requirement of a virtual storefront; it also empowers sellers to revolutionize the buying experience by offering new customer-driven processes and business models previously not possible. Online transactions can now happen when and where it makes sense for the buyer, which we are confident will lead to higher conversion rates and increased revenue by turning shopping browsers into buyers.
Buy Anyware™ is a true manifestation of the next generation of frictionless online purchasing and gaming. It provides end-users the ability to buy anything, anywhere, at any time; truly e-Commerce 3.0. Developed from the knowledge we gained over the past 10 years, in developing this e-Commerce 3.0 vision, we have had the pleasure of working with several innovative companies, including Yummy Interactive and Gigya. These companies and others we will announce in the future are doing some really cool things with the API that we think will help them reap the new monetization channels it enables.
You can read the entire release by clicking here and we have further information and application videos are available here. And, please, let me know if you want to learn more about Buy Anyware™ or our thoughts on e-Commerce 3.0, I’m happy to chat.
Charlie Born,
Head of Marketing
Highlights from E3 2010
Jun 23rd
I spent the past week at E3 as Plimus was exhibiting in the Game Connect hall. It was both a fun and busy time for the entire Plimus team. We met with dozens of current and potential customers and also got to cruise around the show floor. So much cool stuff in games and consoles, etc. that I could share with you. But, I’ve outlined my top 10 list below:
1.) Plimus and Yummy Interactive launched the In-Game Activation interface, which is helping limit the hassle of online, in-gaming transactions. Of course, I put us first, but for casual gamers this is big. Revenues are what drive innovation.
2.) Sony Corp. introduced a $49.99 motion-activated video-game controller, Playstation Move, in hopes of winning casual game players from Nintendo Co.’s Wii console.
3.) It was an all-out war on 3-D video game capabilities at the show. Sony demonstrated Playstation 3 games with 3-D capabilities and Nintendo introduced its 3DS handheld device that displays games in three dimensions without wearing 3-D glasses.
4.) Sporty Spice stopped outside the Plimus meeting room for an interview she had with the media. She’s surprisingly shorter than you’d think.
5.) We began to see the rise of Microsoft Kinect – new demos, new games and old favorites (Sonic the Hedgehog). There was a lot of chatter with people saying it’s going to overhaul the entire gaming industry. We shall see.
6.) Casual gaming was a key focal point at the show. I even noticed gamers checking on their Farmville crops and keeping their mind alert with a quick game of Bejeweled from their iPhones on the show floors.
7.) Oh, the things you see on the show floor. I can’t put it into words, so check out this photo spread from CNET.
8.) Did you know that Mickey Mouse has a long lost “half brother” named Oswald the Lucky Rabbit? Who knew?!? The soon-to-be-released Epic Mickey game from Disney Interactive Studios features this character along with Mickey and his magic paint brush.
9.) Richard Branson and Virgin Gaming are back after a decade. Branson turned up, in his traditionally exuberant manner, in an armored truck, $1 million in hand for the biggest prizes and most rewards his new website will offer. Every time I went by, there was not much action compared to the other booths – so we’ll need to see how this plays out.
10.) Underlying all the excitement and hype, were visible concerns about the future Supreme Court hearing on the legality of a California law regulating computer and video games.
Charlie Born,
Head of Marketing
Photo credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/55935853@N00/2302573414/
