Mobile and online flirting service Flirtomatic says that it witnessed explosive sales of virtual gifts over the Christmas period, selling over 28,000 gifts in the five days between Boxing Day and New Years Eve, which equates to 233 gifts per hour. In the run up towards Christmas Day, Flirtomatic sold over 54,000 virtual gifts, while gift purchases on Boxing Day were double what they were on Christmas Day, and rose a further 50% on 27 December.
One of the most popular gifts over Christmas was the Flirtomatic Christmas Stocking, which was also one of the most expensive. Over 16,000 were sold, a third of them within the first three days of the item going on sale. Other top-selling gifts over Christmas included Candy Canes (just under 9,000), Mistletoe (8,300) and Rednose Reindeer (over 7,000).
Vodafone UKs promotion offering pay as you go users free data between Christmas and New Year also seemed to help get people into the spirit of things, says Flirtomatic, giving people the chance to explore the web on their phone without fear of huge data charges. The company says it enjoyed six times the usual number of new user signs ups during the promotional period.
Theres no doubt that when done correctly, virtual gifts encourage more people to make micropayments using their mobile and by doing so, builds up their confidence in using their phone to pay for things, says Flirtomatic CEO, Mark Curtis. After selling over a million gifts in 2009, we know that our users love giving gifts to each other, but gifts are just one of our premium service revenue streams, and naturally we see a spike in other streams over the holiday period too. Our New Year, New You service is currently very popular, giving users the chance to pay to delete all their lowest ratings, so they can start the year off with a perfect 10.
With Valentines Day approaching, Flirtomatic is now stocking its virtual shelves with Valentines gifts and services, including a Valentines Gift Box and a Secret Valentines service, which will allow Flirtomatic users to send gifts to friends who dont use the service.