Gamification contributes to growth by making a customers experience and relationship more “sticky”. Stickiness is one of the key habit forming elements of product design. increasing engagement for existing customers as well as acquiring new customers and improving ecommerce KPIs.
Gamification is a technique that involves using game concepts and elements to entertain users and influence their behavior. Gamification is based on the Action-Reward psychology all humans, and even non-human animals operate on.
Specific actions result in rewards creating a potentially endless cycle of interaction within which specific steps can lead to purchase actions.
Gamification can take various forms, such as loyalty points, badges, challenges, contests, rewards, competitions, and personalized experiences and can be integrated at different stages of the customer journey, including product discovery, browsing, checkout, and post-purchase.
Ultimately, the goal of gamification is to enhance the shopping experience and increase customer engagement, promote loyalty and retention.
Loyalty programs that offer rewards or exclusive perks to customers for completing certain actions or spending certain amounts can create a sense of achievement and encourage repeat purchases.
Running contests or giveaways that encourage customers to share their experiences or engage with the brand can create excitement and encourage participation.
Interactive product experiences, such as virtual try-ons or product customization tools, can create a sense of playfulness and encourage exploration.
Encouraging customers to share their purchases or experiences on social media can create a sense of competition or social validation.
Drawings and contests are some forms of gamification used in ecommerce effectively.
Gamification options
When designing gamified experiences for ecommerce, we can use a variety of features that enhance user engagement and provide a sense of accomplishment, including points system, badges and achievements, leaderboards, virtual currency, progress bars, challenges and missions, spin-to-win wheels, quizzes and trivia, leveling up, unlockable content, time-limited challenges, social sharing, custom avatars or profiles, augmented reality (AR) Interactions, mystery boxes or surprise rewards
As you can see there are many ways to engage customers in some form of gamification process. We need only one of these to work to provide measurable value but finding that option will take careful research and experimentation as well as experience in how the feature would work with your customers and your products.
Examples of gamified ecommerce
Lego's is a good example of gamification where their website and apps often feature interactive games and challenges that involve building virtual Lego structures. These games promote engagement and creativity, aligning with the brand's core values.