We here at Social Gold continuously strive to bring seamless payments experiences to customers while enabling developers to further expand and monetize their paying customer base. It is with this objective in mind that we’re pleased to announce our new partnership with Kwedit.
Going forward, all games and virtual worlds leveraging the Social Gold platform for in-game payments will now have access to the Kwedit service, which allows customers without credit or debit cards, or who would simply prefer to pay with cash, to purchase items without having to buy a prepaid card. This is particularly relevant for tween and teen audiences who are heavily engaged in online games and virtual worlds, but don’t have access to credit cards. Large online communities such as Gaia Online, who frequently receive cash-filled envelopes from their community members in exchange for virtual goods, can greatly benefit from a more streamlined online approach to cash-based transactions.
Unlike prepaid cards where a customer needs to physically be in the retail store to purchase, customers will be just a click away from buying virtual currency while they’re online and fully engaged in the experience. After a purchase is made, customers can print a receipt with a bar-code and pay at their nearest Kwedit authorized location, such as 7-Eleven, or simply mail cash to a Kwedit payment processing facility. It’s just that easy.
If a player has to leave their computer to search for a store that sells a game’s specific prepaid card, their desire to purchase a virtual good may wane or dissipate completely. By receiving goods first and paying for them later, developers can also capitalize on impulse purchases from cash paying customers. Additionally, developers are reliant on third parties to produce and distribute prepaid cards that take a cut of the revenue generated by them, and so our partnership with Kwedit will enable developers to sell direct to customers online and keep a greater portion of the revenue.
Finally, our solution will eventually enable customers to choose the exact amount of their purchase, versus prepaid cards that have fixed denominations. With prepaid cards, often there are amounts of money leftover that is never used. Instead with our online solution, customers will be able to use the full value of their purchase. Variable denominations are not available at launch, but will soon be!
At Social Gold we’re deeply committed to bringing developers the tools they need to better monetize and satisfy their customers’ purchasing needs – creating a win-win for everyone. We anticipate that today’s launch with Kwedit will further bring value to both developers and end-users alike.
Tags: cash, electronic payments, unbanked
That’s great news, as a casual player i always stumble into problems with paying online, thanks for the update.