Web Shops for Mobile Games - Andrey Kalugin, Xsolla

this is our first session of the day a uh a solo talk by um uh by Andre Culligan of exoner to talk about web shops for mobile uh with some lessons and learnings so please welcome into the stage and we'll kick things off thank you Dave oh uh actually you know it's very hard to have a presentation after lunch you know it's very hard to distract people from what they enjoy the most but okay anyway uh let's start my name is Andrei kalugin I'm Regional director for exola and what we do in exola we help game developers to monetize around the globe in different countries I think different cultures and using different payment methods

uh actually in today I will talk I would like to talk with you about key learnings that we've got after launching more than um 150 web shops for mobile games that we did over the last uh 18 months okay so today mobile uh games Market really uh experience a lot of issues okay it's it's not it's not me okay so we saw that in 2022 Market Mobile Market squeezed by around seven percent with these that people spend less and less after the after Kobe time and at the same time uh National Regulators put pressure on platforms and that limit the ability to successfully operate and monetize the shops so stores and really it's good time to think about Alternatives what should you do differently and what should you do else in order to ensure that you have solid Revenue stream and solid uh cash inflows

okay so I would like to start with simple um statement about difference between uh platform and boutique as we talk about uh web shop so there are two different concepts first concept it's Marketplace we call it platform when you sell some virtual currencies uh some virtual currency packs uh on the marketplace and you you just uh part of a choice that customer has and bad thing about platform that really you share your Gamers your customers with another developers and other Publishers and other projects another thing another approach about webshop that you create your own landing page white level store and within this white label store you sell exclusively to Gamers your virtual items virtual currencies bundles and so on and actually

also there is perception that web sharp adjusts single Top-Up page where players just can replace replenish balance of the virtual currency this is actually quite um limited view framed view on on this idea we in exola believe that webshop is just really direct to Consumer engine which can help you to monetize um your product using Rich lifeops techniques as bundles promotions and you can do also retention and Implement another in-game engagement mechanics that help you to generate High profitable Revenue stream and actually one important thing why as developer you should have webshop okay you have well-established product you sell directly to cons not directly but you sell or via Apple and Google stores to your Gamers but you share some

significant amount of Revenue so you can actually create additional Revenue stream with high margin with better profit for you in order to get a bit of more cash for your developers for your studio for your user acquisition activities and you should think about webshop not not as about substitution of standard well-established Channel but you should think about webshop as extension to what already exists and you should think about a webshop as augmentation to store that you already operate and with this augmentation again you can create better margin better profit and and more Revenue okay so uh we let's talk about results so what what we've got uh for the last 18 months so we launched more than 100 stores so they perform they have very different kpis and those kpis are very depend how web shop is built house

operated but we see that in best case scenarios up to 30 40 percent of paying users moves to webshop we'll talk about this why but this is just you know very simple and solid kpis so uh webshop good established and well crafted valve shop can give you 40 60 percent of conversional rate from login to purchase and all this will give you up to 20 of incremental Revenue what you earn within your existing well-established channels like apple uh Apple Store and Google Play Store and uh with webshops we see that average number of repeated purchases is around five so as you say as you think about webshop okay what it give what it can give to me think about these numbers as I would say

best case in best case scenario so when you build your own business case and the little companies like exola or our competitors so and you can use these numbers as Benchmark for your Revenue projections okay so now let's talk about the concepts how uh what's idea behind the webshop for end user so our purpose in our mission with this solution to create two different outside Concepts two streams so first concept that okay mobile is where I play and web is where I pay so really for end user Frank speaking is uh in in current situation with current status quo it's maybe it's much more easier to pay within application right but we think about our business goals so what we should we should improve profitability of our business right we want to improve our cost structure of our store and

operations and moving Gamers from uh mobile I would say jail to webshop is the way how you can increase this profitability an idea that let we need to create habit for paying users to play on mobile and pay on web so and mechanics that I will show you demonstrate they help create such habit can create such Paradigm that there are two different Behavior patterns for playing and paying okay so uh what lessons lessons we have learned so for successful webshop launch and operating there are three crucial components you should uh take into consideration first of all it's messaging or how to create a warniness of the web shop existence and you need uh reinforce the ID and message of increased value outside of your mobile like a system so

messaging and making aware and bringing Gamers to webshop it's the first crucial thing we need to resolve incentive we need to be hyper clear about incremental value that gamer gets on webshop compared to value he gets on mobile shop so value we call it incentive incentive value so it's it's uh I would say it's it's top thing that motivate Gamers to switch their behavior partner and start to play just on mobile and start to pay on that so value and there are actually reduce a lot of frictions right and we need to think how we reduce those frictions because okay in game experience is very smooth and solid all payment methods already there authentification you shouldn't think about this or you know operational stuff it's all well established and in order to motivate I'll say help

Gamers continue to use webshop we need to think how we reduce friction and how to make transactions easy and seamless so we'll talk about this uh in a few minutes so those are three key elements now let's dive into details okay message messaging here it's very important just okay all mobile developers they know how to I would say categorize their Gamers base and let's be honest so we're we we demonstrate the best and the webshop demonstrate the best performance if you have already well established a Gamers base if you have whales you have dolphins and web shops works very well for those Gamers who already uh spend a lot there

is no reason to launch webshop if you just you know launching your pro your product if you're just starting an idea here that again those people those Gamers they spend a lot they they want to spend a lot we don't want to give them any discounts we just can't give them better value on webshop and uh target audience primary target audience for webshop of course it's Wales and then we can think about already dolphins and uh making non-paying users to pay and we have some cases about this also okay there are two steps so in messaging part so we need to create awareness of webshop existence and its value and we need to reinforce value message and and stimulate repeating purchases and step one is crucial right because as I talk to my partners to developers so there are two uh core or core questions why gamer should go to webshop

and what compliant instruments do we have to do this so let's talk about this so and why so the first um and you know the answers for this question is a very variety from from genre to genre and based on our experience those Gamers who play core games midcore games hardcore games they're much more easier to switch to webshop just because they're heavily engaged with uh um game experience they spend a lot they purchase a lot and as you start to give them better value on webshop for them it's much easier to to switch we schedule Gamers it's much harder to do but still possible so incentive so as we talk about incentive so about what kind of incentives we should think okay it's all again we'll talk about uh messaging so it as I mentioned the most crucial

and uh important and hard to execute exercise to make the first purchase because Gamers they have a lot of concerns okay why should I go on some website is is it scam should I use uh some you know should I review my payment methods should I authenticate a lot of questions he had he has in his head that's why the first time purchase should have a killer offer in terms of failure as we work with our partners we ask them do not discount look again we will talk about whales right whales don't want they don't want to save money they don't want to get more and as due to better margin better cost with webshop you can give them better value and in order to I would say and cap this you know magic of webshop this first time offer that you do for first Gamers should be killer offer this

this you know uh you know limited availability bundle you can just ship um sell one two bundles maximum just to open this door and let a gamer to come into your webshop then we in order to reinforce you know his uh visits and make the gamer to return you should think about giving uh you know daily rewards daily gifts and platforms uh good well-established webshop platforms they have such instruments that allow you to initiate free items daily reward gamer just need to return to webshop and see okay what else what else you have for me yeah okay and reduce friction uh this is super uh crucial uh thing because there are a few uh I see we have

three but I believe there are two major things authentification and payment detail input because look when there is in-game purchase experience again everything is well is well established uh platforms uh have very good you know ux uh for storing payment methods in terms of authentication no any troubles and we ask how developers do not make those uh things simple simple simplicated for example if you if you want if you have age ratings for your game don't Implement age rating for authentication on webshop because do just inside your game don't use uh two steps uh authentication or multi-factor authentication because it's the may make the whole process much uh longer platforms like Xolo provide so anti-fraud protection and really we can

protect you against those unwanted fraud and complicated ways to protect the shop are not required also payment detail input really many many gamers and users are very conscious about uh storing payment like credit cards credentials so on uh that is why the beauty of services like Excel that we give ability to use multiple payment methods and also what what you can do you can incentivize Gamers if they save the payment method within your webshop infrastructure okay so now we need to after after we actually agreed on on messaging so now there's another thing how to bring customers Gamers to webshop and this is very I'll say sensitive area because platforms

like apple Google they have very strict policies how you can convince gamer about alternative payment methods and alternative stores right and there are a lot of no goals right a lot of boundaries and we ask our partners to follow this rules you know I I got funny cases so few Partners from China who really don't care a lot and they put you know the buttons okay pay with excela pay with Apple pay with Google signs a game this is what we do not want developers to do you should comply with the policies 100 of time but there are ways to bring and inform customers in compliance in in a good way so first of all you need to think about communities right and mention remember I mentioned hardcore and mid core games so communities variant people are very engaged with

your game build community or work use Discord related social media formers forums and newsletters to inform your uh your audience about common webshop about offers you have and so on as for advertisement uh we'll talk about you can use retargeting as instrument to bring customers your Gamers your whales to webshop also you can use an app uh call calls to action but you should be very conscious those uh call to actions should shouldn't be about webshop never say anything about webshop inside your game but you can bring Gamers to FAQ Pages Community Pages leaderboards and use this in-app collections to make Gamers aware through your website bring them to your them to website and then on your website from the website forward them to your

webshop and there is another of course a key element which is not mentioned here it's uh um communicative sales so it's a way it's a way to interact with uh Gamers using Messengers uh conversational sales so when you can uh reach your customer using telegram Viber WhatsApp and sell directly to them another Communication channel which is used by social casinos and I see that a more uh mid core games use it like of like concierge service for your whales those developers know names of whales they they know personally people who spend a lot and they send them but it's a very personalized Communications very personalized offers they treat them very carefully personally they provide them really concierge service and you can use the same approach to make Gamers aware

about your webshop and as your uh as as you prepare for launch or webshop just use variety of those Medias to enforce your message just stay the guys will be new new shop they will be exclusive offers very sexy and sweet bundles uh you don't underestimate power of newsletters which are really also used by a midcore projects and retargeting just one minute to stop here this is what we actively started to use recently with our partners so idea about to targeting that you know who you know who your gamers are whales are and you demonstrate advertisement to them important thing you do not promote webshop at all no with retargeting you need to promote offers you need to make promote offers which exclusively exist for those whales and

this really instrument you can use also inside your game you can use it uh show this advertisement and other games on mobile application desktop and so on please consider retargeting as very solid instrument to bring gamer there okay just summarize here you in order to drive awareness to webshop just make clear make sure that you have very clear and solid value prop for for first time visitors use heavily your existing channels standard channels to to engage your community use newsletters and notifications inside the game but it should be very compliant with platforms policies be accurate here and constantly reinforce a message about availability of a webshop okay now about assortment about skus so what to sell it's also very important and what your price in policy should be so uh first of

all again as I mentioned please uh use uh free words just to make Gamers to return to your webshop and as we talk about where first time offer uh first time purchase some gamers are very conscious about you know smoothness of process how it works and they don't want to spend money uh in order to trial this webshop right but if you give free item they can go through the whole journey ensure themselves that everything works fine and get this free item on the in the inventory in mobile game they'll just figure out okay every file everything works fine now I can spend money securely this this webshop please use uh free items so first time purchase again just uh re-articulate first offer should be killer offer right should be offered

that is hard to refuse just think about not not discounts don't use discounts but you think about extra value that you give to your whales and another mechanics that you can use promo codes for exclusive deals and this is good thing to uh use uh with influencers if you use streamers uh opinion letters just uh use this mechanics time limited offers just to make more people aware and create this sense of urgency in order they would use this offer just the next one week and so you really need to pack all these different kind of mechanics into one uh into one you know offer so into one event launch event uh it's very crucial moment and you really you shouldn't be greedy as we launch

your webshop because again just remind we need to create a habit play on mobile play on the web and about uh this is further you know creation you know habit we see that high value packs works very well in webshop we have customers who generate more than half of the revenue selling current specs above one thousand dollars don't be afraid to set high prices there on webshop you are not limited with any price tiers you can do whatever you want and a high value packs works very well uh you can also increase LTV implementing loyalty programs right you can use your [Music] um you can use your I would say web shop cashback points to stimulate Gamers spend spend spend and then those loyalty

points can be spent for some in-game items virtual currencies and so on and platforms like exola give you such instruments to enable this loyalty program so this also works very well and uh season passes and um and battle passes also don't as as you think about webshop don't think just about static assortment think also about uh seasonal passes and these seasonal passes can again have Rich value compared to what you have on mobile platform just because or beta margin for you and okay uh just a few pitfalls what we should avoid so again value is the king why because we need to stimulate gamer to purchase on on webshop and you need to ensure that you give solidware here uh also the whole process shouldn't be complicated authentication payment

message check out and so on just make it as simple as possible because again there is very smooth and convenient experience that already exists right in order to motivate people to spend spend spend on Workshop experience there should be also smooth and and causing so don't don't replicate values and SK so don't replicate bundles prices and skus compared to you have in in mobile game differentiate webshop should be different again don't discount just give better value and grab more revenue from Gamers who can who are ready to spend more or ready to leave you know this give you this money and uh well-established webshare platforms they have instruments to do personalization you can use you know very convenient

instruments to do personalized offers and the bundles use them within your webshop and again it's all about differentiation um and I think uh another and as you know crucial thing to mention uh don't don't try to launch your your ideal web shop just immediately at your lunch uh do it by small steps right it's elephant by small pieces try different things try different Promotions try different pricing strategies try different banding strategies and promotion strategies at the very end your webshop will generate for you up to 30 40 percent of the revenue that you have on on the mobile platforms and I believe that the most big mistake that you could do do not build web shop at all but again just to remind you when we talk about webshop not to substitute generic uh shops in the game experience

that exists now it will be there it will generate the biggest part of your Revenue but you should think about webshop as extension to what you already have and you should think about that shop as additional Revenue generator for you and not building the web shop in this context is a huge Pitfall okay guys that's all from my site I'm open for questions we have three minutes yeah I got a couple of minutes there if anyone has a question I will uh bring the mic to you there's a question here I'll come over to you so here we go okay several you you can do it privately why you want to ask right now thank you thank you for the pitch I just wanted to know so the user logs in on mobile using can they use different methods like Apple ID Google ID or should they use exola login option to then connect to the web shop

yeah actually Excel has login servers but it's not our exclusive solo again it just you know a platform that help developers to use Apple ID Google account Microsoft account Facebook mail uh phone number and so on we support around 30 notification method so there are two ways to authenticate within the game first of all gamer ID can be used to uh initiate checkout right every gamer has ID in his profile he can check it in his mobile application and just before check out gamer put his ID into Chicago form done the reason I have the method uh when game are identification for example with Facebook and Google or Google account inside the game and here's indicates with the same methods on webshop and this is enough in order we could link mobile profile with webshop profile and

it's just enough to enable transaction and put in an item into Gamers inventory so you can you have flexibility there great thank you I think we're almost at the end I've got a quick question for you if I may Andre what's have you got a a good example of a webshop that does this really well if we wanted to go away from here and look up a webshop in a game that's doing this perfectly who should we go to okay it's you know funny question because some of our big really Enterprise customers are a bit shy because they're afraid to ruin relations with platforms so obviously there some of those Representatives so uh and we respect this but we have public cases like uh we work with tilting point and they have a few web shops for their products I would say that we have web shops for key AAA Mobile developers right United States European Korean again why because all of them think

about additional revenue streams to the well-established business so but in private conversation if you come to me okay I will I will reveal some details perfect not publicly thank you very much we're at the end of the session there so a random Applause please for Andre from exola thank you guys thank you for having me here have a good day thank you yeah you too thank you very much and yes please do look any of our speakers up on me to match if you want to follow up with them for a private meeting