In-App Credit Card Payments Drive Social Gold Conversion Up 50%

Today Jambool, developer of the Social Gold payment backend for online games, revealed that its new in-app credit card payment feature was driving paid conversion in client apps as high as 50%. Jambool CEO Vikas Gupta mentioned the new feature in an earlier interview with Virtual Goods News, but at that time the feature had not yet been implemented. Now the feature is currently active on client apps including the popular Facebook games (Lil) Green Patch and World War II.

The in-app credit card payment feature allows users to make microtransaction purchases without having to leave the game momentarily to go through a PayPal or Amazon payment flow. Once a user has entered his or her credit card information, he or she will be able to make purchases in any app that supports Social Gold without having to enter the credit card information over again. This essentially enables purchases of virtual goods and currency that require only a few clicks in all apps that support Social Gold.

Jambool's release of conversion figures for the new Social Gold feature dramatically emphasize a common refrain in discussions of virtual goods sales, namely that reducing friction in the payment processes increases sales. Most social games also strive to make playing a low-friction experience, too, which increases the likelihood of impulse buys. It will be interesting to see how this ability to deliver low-friction payments affects Jambool's stated plans to bring Social Gold to new types of client platforms in the future.

[via Inside Facebook]

Comments

[Alex]

Simple cross-scripting and this 'scheme' will die. If it will take off first of course. :)

[Sherry]

One of my fellow players on VPN has reported a very bad experience with Social Gold: Quote "I tried to redeem a $50 prepaid gift card and the "social gold" credit company charged me and didnt give me any meteor credits
everytime i clicked they charged $1 off my card
I submitted a report to "social gold" company and those theives never gave me my meteor credits" Unquote
I'm trying to find out more about the company now in hopes of helping him resolve the problem so he can either get his Meteor Credits or get his money back.