So disappointed with Fortumo

[thegdog]

Cannot believe that is who Barnes & Noble went with for their in-app purchases.  No wonder the Nook is on its last legs.

I just do not understand why Fortumo thought that it was acceptable to have the lowest price you can charge for an in-app purchase be $1.99 USD.  I think this is the final straw to just getting rid of the Nook Store version of my app.  I don’t want to have my $0.99 in-app purchases be $1 more for Nook users.  Or have to bundle things together to be able to get to approximately the same price point.

I think the best part is on their web site home page, they show an in-app purchase of €0.32.  Now I know the US Dollar exchange rate is bad, but €0.32 doesn’t equal $1.99.  So apparently Fortumo is good with the false advertising, but bad at actually delivering to developers.

[mattias.liivak]

Hello Thegdog,

Mattias here from Fortumo. Sorry to hear about your disappointment. The minimum in-app purchasing price for NOOK is indeed $1.99. The minimum prices for in-app purchasing are typically set by each app-store (or in case of mobile operator billing, by the mobile operator) - not by Fortumo.

If you look through http://fortumo.com/countries you can see that minimum prices vary significantly across countries. Also, different appstores have decided to set them differently. While this is not always ideal, it’s unfortunately a reality of mobile operator billing and in-app purchasing. However, there’s a lot of data to prove that developers who charge higher prices for in-app purchases (for example by bundling more things together or via virtual credits) earn more revenue per user. 

The €0.32 price on a photo on Fortumo.com front-page which you claim is a “false advertising” illustrates a carrier billing transaction in Europe that has nothing to do with NOOK. In fact, this should be very apparent from the fact that it is shown within an Android phone that looks nothing like any NOOK tablet. If it’s confusing, I apologize, but I can assure you, it has never been our intention to mislead anyone with that picture. If you click on the image, you can also see that it directs you to http://fortumo.com/in-app-payments, not the NOOK solution located at http://fortumo.com/in-app-purchasing-nook. 

Happy to have a longer conversation with you about in-app purchases, different app stores and monetization options on Android outside of Google Play. Feel free to get in touch with me directly - mattias.liivak@fortumo.com. 

Best regards,

Mattias

[thegdog]

Thank you for the information, Mattias. 

My comment about the false advertising is because I was unaware of the difference between your Nook solution and your mobile payment solution.  So yes, the image of the phone looks nothing like a Nook is clear, but that does not mean knowing the difference between Nook pricing and mobile payment pricing is clear.  Your website is quite bad at actually making this information easy to find.  As an example, go to your “Support” page and enter minimum price or even just minimum in the search field and searching.  No results.

I find it ironic that you mention how the mobile payment prices have nothing to do with the Nook, yet that’s where you then send me to look.  Also, if you click the image I referred to as “false advertising,” which goes to the in-app purchasing page you referenced, you may want to note that it actually does have the Nook right there in the main messaging area on the page.  So if you expect people to infer that it is a completely separate implementation than the Nook implementation, you really need a better Information Architect on your web team.

But I do thank you for the information.  I think this has just made me realize that it is time to stop supporting the Nook store.  Since the Nooks now have the Google Play app on them, there really is not a big reason to support the Nook store any longer.  If I do remove my app from the store, I will be sure to point out to Barnes & Noble that it is because of that minimum price that they decided to enforce for in-app purchases.  Thank you for pointing out that it was them who set that price.

[mattias.liivak]

@thegdog

Thank you for the information, Mattias. 

My comment about the false advertising is because I was unaware of the difference between your Nook solution and your mobile payment solution.  So yes, the image of the phone looks nothing like a Nook is clear, but that does not mean knowing the difference between Nook pricing and mobile payment pricing is clear.  Your website is quite bad at actually making this information easy to find.  As an example, go to your “Support” page and enter minimum price or even just minimum in the search field and searching.  No results.

I find it ironic that you mention how the mobile payment prices have nothing to do with the Nook, yet that’s where you then send me to look.  Also, if you click the image I referred to as “false advertising,” which goes to the in-app purchasing page you referenced, you may want to note that it actually does have the Nook right there in the main messaging area on the page.  So if you expect people to infer that it is a completely separate implementation than the Nook implementation, you really need a better Information Architect on your web team.

But I do thank you for the information.  I think this has just made me realize that it is time to stop supporting the Nook store.  Since the Nooks now have the Google Play app on them, there really is not a big reason to support the Nook store any longer.  If I do remove my app from the store, I will be sure to point out to Barnes & Noble that it is because of that minimum price that they decided to enforce for in-app purchases.  Thank you for pointing out that it was them who set that price.

The reason why they are cross-referenced is because the same SDK can be used for credit card billing on NOOK and for operator billing on other Android devices. So you can do one integration and have your app ready for both in-app purchasing for NOOK Apps and any other Android store like Google Play, Amazon, SlideME etc. 

Regarding technical documentation, these are available at http://developers.fortumo.com/in-app-purchasing-on-nook/ for NOOK and http://developers.fortumo.com/in-app-purchasing-on-android/ for other Android devices respectively.

[mattias.liivak]

Hello Thegdog,

Mattias here from Fortumo. Sorry to hear about your disappointment. The minimum in-app purchasing price for NOOK is indeed $1.99. The minimum prices for in-app purchasing are typically set by each app-store (or in case of mobile operator billing, by the mobile operator) - not by Fortumo.

If you look through http://fortumo.com/countries you can see that minimum prices vary significantly across countries. Also, different appstores have decided to set them differently. While this is not always ideal, it’s unfortunately a reality of mobile operator billing and in-app purchasing. However, there’s a lot of data to prove that developers who charge higher prices for in-app purchases (for example by bundling more things together or via virtual credits) earn more revenue per user. 

The €0.32 price on a photo on Fortumo.com front-page which you claim is a “false advertising” illustrates a carrier billing transaction in Europe that has nothing to do with NOOK. In fact, this should be very apparent from the fact that it is shown within an Android phone that looks nothing like any NOOK tablet. If it’s confusing, I apologize, but I can assure you, it has never been our intention to mislead anyone with that picture. If you click on the image, you can also see that it directs you to http://fortumo.com/in-app-payments, not the NOOK solution located at http://fortumo.com/in-app-purchasing-nook. 

Happy to have a longer conversation with you about in-app purchases, different app stores and monetization options on Android outside of Google Play. Feel free to get in touch with me directly - mattias.liivak@fortumo.com. 

Best regards,

Mattias

[thegdog]

Thank you for the information, Mattias. 

My comment about the false advertising is because I was unaware of the difference between your Nook solution and your mobile payment solution.  So yes, the image of the phone looks nothing like a Nook is clear, but that does not mean knowing the difference between Nook pricing and mobile payment pricing is clear.  Your website is quite bad at actually making this information easy to find.  As an example, go to your “Support” page and enter minimum price or even just minimum in the search field and searching.  No results.

I find it ironic that you mention how the mobile payment prices have nothing to do with the Nook, yet that’s where you then send me to look.  Also, if you click the image I referred to as “false advertising,” which goes to the in-app purchasing page you referenced, you may want to note that it actually does have the Nook right there in the main messaging area on the page.  So if you expect people to infer that it is a completely separate implementation than the Nook implementation, you really need a better Information Architect on your web team.

But I do thank you for the information.  I think this has just made me realize that it is time to stop supporting the Nook store.  Since the Nooks now have the Google Play app on them, there really is not a big reason to support the Nook store any longer.  If I do remove my app from the store, I will be sure to point out to Barnes & Noble that it is because of that minimum price that they decided to enforce for in-app purchases.  Thank you for pointing out that it was them who set that price.

[mattias.liivak]

@thegdog

Thank you for the information, Mattias. 

My comment about the false advertising is because I was unaware of the difference between your Nook solution and your mobile payment solution.  So yes, the image of the phone looks nothing like a Nook is clear, but that does not mean knowing the difference between Nook pricing and mobile payment pricing is clear.  Your website is quite bad at actually making this information easy to find.  As an example, go to your “Support” page and enter minimum price or even just minimum in the search field and searching.  No results.

I find it ironic that you mention how the mobile payment prices have nothing to do with the Nook, yet that’s where you then send me to look.  Also, if you click the image I referred to as “false advertising,” which goes to the in-app purchasing page you referenced, you may want to note that it actually does have the Nook right there in the main messaging area on the page.  So if you expect people to infer that it is a completely separate implementation than the Nook implementation, you really need a better Information Architect on your web team.

But I do thank you for the information.  I think this has just made me realize that it is time to stop supporting the Nook store.  Since the Nooks now have the Google Play app on them, there really is not a big reason to support the Nook store any longer.  If I do remove my app from the store, I will be sure to point out to Barnes & Noble that it is because of that minimum price that they decided to enforce for in-app purchases.  Thank you for pointing out that it was them who set that price.

The reason why they are cross-referenced is because the same SDK can be used for credit card billing on NOOK and for operator billing on other Android devices. So you can do one integration and have your app ready for both in-app purchasing for NOOK Apps and any other Android store like Google Play, Amazon, SlideME etc. 

Regarding technical documentation, these are available at http://developers.fortumo.com/in-app-purchasing-on-nook/ for NOOK and http://developers.fortumo.com/in-app-purchasing-on-android/ for other Android devices respectively.