Gifting gets virtual, and popular

Yasin Bajiwala, 33, from Bharuch in Gujarat, has a virtual avatar ‘London Boy’ and spends almost Rs 300 per month on virtual presents. Bajiwala, an entrepreneur by profession, joined the social networking community three years ago and spends up to eight hours on mobile, interacting with his friends. “I like exchanging virtual gifts regularly. I spend the most on virtual presents like hugs and kisses,” he says.

Bajiwala is not alone when it comes to virtual gifting. This segment, prevalent online, is now catching up on mobiles as well and has seen a frenzied activity during the recent Diwali festivities. Take the case of Migg33, a social networking mobile community that saw nearly 4 million virtual gifts exchanged in June.

“It represented a significant growth from the one-million monthly sales during the first quarter of this year. For us, the exchange of virtual goods jumped 25 per cent this Diwali,” says Mohit Gundecha, director (business development), Migg33. In the run-up to Diwali, Migg33 saw over 260,000 virtual goods exchanged. Prices of these virtual goodies vary between Rs 2 and Rs 100.

Companies like Games2win are also seeing a similar uptake on their platforms. Alok Kejriwal, founder of Games2win, believes youngsters don’t want the usual chocolates or mithais as gifts. “They get excited if you tell them you are giving them a credit of $5 (around Rs 220) on iTunes,” he says.

During Diwali, Kejriwal says, the number of gifts exchanged virtually went up. About 500,000 people visit Chimpoo.com, Games2win’s virtual world for kids, every month. Of them, about 1 per cent exchanged virtual gifts during the Diwali season, which saw people gifting diyas and even saris and sherwani on Chimpoo.com.

Kejriwal says his company gives an option to users for “asking” gifts from others. You can fill an online form asking your mother/father/grandparents for a virtual item. “At the end of the form, you can promise to do something in return, like your homework or clean your room,” he says. About 4,500-5,000 gifts were exchanged during the festive season on Chimpoo. The gifts are priced from Rs 2 to Rs 200.

The success of virtual gifting has been aptly demonstrated by Zynga, the creator of Farmville — one of the most popular applications on social networking website Facebook. As of June 2010, Farmville had 85 million users on Facebook. Of them, according to a third-party report, almost three to five per cent pay. In India, Zynga has a base of almost 10 million, Farmville and Mafia Wars being the two most popular games. On Zynga, too, the gift prices vary from Rs 2 to Rs 150.

Companies, too, are latching on to this trend. Last year around Diwali, Cadbury launched a virtual gifting application on Facebook, where users could gift each other chocolates. In fact, the company launched a similar application around Rakhi as well.

The market for virtual gifting in India is still at a nascent stage, but Kejriwal is confident that it will grow in the next couple of years. “It’s a world of instant gratification, and virtual gifting is just a part of it,” he says.