Currently, ecommerce market is on a straight upswing. It means there’s intense competition and more choices for consumers in the same segment. Plus, consumer’s shrinking attention turns marketers’ focus from traditional growth strategies to something new.
Strategies like ads and push notifications no longer accommodate the consumer’s busy state. An average user gets 46 notifications a day, 40% of them are from ecommerce brands. This shows that most ecommerce brands still rely on push notifications where top brands have already adopted new age engagement and retention strategies like ecommerce gamification.
It’s high time to track consumer behavior and redefine the ways to attract visitors and convert them into loyal customers. This can be achieved by introducing gamification in ecommerce and providing habit stacking user experience. 87% of online retailers plan to use gamification in the next five years. 70% of the top 2000 companies are using it right now.
What is gamification and why there’s so much buzz around its benefits?
This article is going to pop all the insights. So keep reading.
What is Gamification?
Gamification is the infusion of gamified features in commercial apps to drive user’s curiosity and engagement. Building a game section in the eCommerce app gives a reason to users to stay longer, play their favorite game, earn rewards and finally make a checkout with discounts before leaving.
On every purchase, they get loyalty points or rewards for the next checkout on their favorite product. This loop prompt customers to stick with the business and ultimately develops loyalty towards a brand.
Gamification is projected to be a $95.5 Billion industry by 2030 and it is all set to redefine the ecommerce market the most. It is the best way to utilize the screen time of consumers to support the growth strategies for ecommerce businesses.
Benefits of Gamification in ecommerce
Gamification proves to be an effective marketing tactic in terms of attracting, engaging and retaining customers in the long term. Here are some benefits marketers should glance at to make the best for their online business.
Create Brand Awareness
Games have a tendency to attract users. Remember, how games like Mario and City racing got popular? They drive users' competitive instinct in return for virtual coins to unlock some ultra features of the game. Virtual rewards give a sense of accomplishment and encourage users to share via social media. Social sharing creates strong brand visibility with a positive and long-lasting relationship with users.
Games can be aligned with the business goals to develop a direct impact on product offerings. Quizzes ignite users of what all sorts of products exist on the website combined with current events like cricket matches, Olympics, festivals, and the latest season.
Such activities keep the users engaged for a long time, beat churn rate, and improve Google ranking as more game-loving traffic comes to the website. Gamifying websites can boost browsing time by up to 30%. Quite a pretty jump, right?
Helps in Customers Acquisition
Answer why game zones are always located in shopping malls? The reason lies in providing customers the convenience to give their kids something time consumable so that they can enjoy their shopping.
The same applies to online stores, a games section is specifically made for the kiddos spirit of consumers. Majority of online users are Gen Z and young millennials. They love games as much as they love shopping. That’s why 60% of consumers are more likely to buy from a brand if they enjoyed playing a game with it.
Rewards earned from the games can be utilized for availing discounts on the next purchase or gift to loved ones. This enlightens the loyalty of existing customers and encourage them to participate in the referral program and fill their bag with rewards, points and discounts. Ultimately, game lovers become customers for the business.
Drive Customer Engagement
Customers are engaged when they are pulled by their emotional desire. The desire of being considered important and valued. Giving a personalized experience is essential to ensure users spend quality time on the platform and visit again habitually. In fact, engagement and customer experience matter so much that 88% of customers are willing to pay more for a better experience.
Gamification strategies like quizzes, wheel spin, scratch cards and streaks engage users for a long time with a motivation to earn points and redeem them with attractive discounts and cashback. 58.7% of internet users believe earning rewards and points are the most valued aspects of the shopping experience.
Other mechanisms like loyalty programs and Badges are very popular among online retailers nowadays. On every purchase, users maintain their shopping streak and accomplish a badge at a certain level. Each badge unlocks some exclusive benefits for users and provides ultimate user experience.
Helps in Customer Retention
If a business is successful in engaging users, there are more chances that the user base will grow as existing customers stay loyal while new users come along the way. This is practically known as customer retention and it is crucial to increase the Lifetime Value of customers without spending too much on marketing. As a fact says, retaining users is 5 times cheaper than acquiring new ones.
Customer retention is a tool to convert a one-time shopper into a repeat customer by forming an addiction and loyalty toward the brand. The continuous loop of engaging users and driving them back to the app helps in customer retention. Increasing customer retention by just 5% boosts profits by 25% to 95%.
The gaming mechanics like loyalty programs, referrals, and badges give reasons to the users to keep coming back to either earn points or to redeem them while checking out.
More Conversions
Conversion is a reward for brands to implement all the strategies from acquiring to engaging and retaining visitors to the platform. A gamified system can increase website visits by 108.5% and an opportunity to see a conversion hike by 9.38%. Since users have interacted with the platform quite a few times, they’ll recall the brand name when they need a specific product.
Above all, the incentives provided while playing will prompt users to redeem them with discounts and get their favorite product at their doorstep. Adopting gamification as one of the ecommerce growth strategies is helpful in reducing cart abandonment and generates a fluent stream of revenue.
According to a survey from Ask Your Target Market, 38% of people said they like it when companies include games or interactive features along with the shopping experience and 30% said they’re more likely to purchase from sites that have interactive features. This data witness the effectiveness of gamification in ecommerce industry.
Examples of Gamification in Ecommerce
Myntra Pictionary
Myntra is a top-level fashion retail store for the young generation looking for branded apparel and accessories. As their target market involves Gen Z and young millennials, they used gamification to achieve dominance in the market. Myntra’s in-app marketing strategy has a big role in its success.
Myntra leveraged gamification to make the shopping experience fun and guilt-free. The infusion of quiz-like Pictionary and games like Logo Mania proved to be a new age engagement and retention strategies. They not only increase in-app retention but also create awareness about product offerings, and reward users to play them that ultimately enhances the checkout rate.
Nykaa Points and Badges
Nykaa, a retail cosmetic brand grabbed the power of gamification and created an excellent customer retention strategy. They infused a reward program in the app that made users come back and buy the products. Customers earn rewards points on every purchase and redeem them on the next checkout.
On collection of certain points, users get a badge and are included in a PRIVE membership. The membership benefits with discounts, offers, birthday coupons and other special attention. This helps in achieving user satisfaction and drives them to buy more for discounts.
Duolingo: Lesson Streak
Duolingo’s streak-based learning structure proves to be a winning strategy. It offers a self-competitive experience to users by providing Lingots (Duolingo’s coin) for achieving a certain benchmark. It sends daily reminders and encourages users to maintain the streak.
The streak tactic helped Duolingo to gain customer engagement and retention. Duolingo learners who reach a streak of just 7 days are 3.6 times more likely to complete their course. Currently, they have over 25 million monthly active users and Duolingo has built a $700 million company—without charging users any subscription or learning fee.
These are a few of the top examples that have leveraged gamification and made themselves all set to expand their market.
What’s next?
We believe you’re convinced with the power of gamification by now and how it can do wonders for your marketing strategy. If you’re looking forward to bring a load of happy users and inspire them to be your customers, then gamification is the sure-fit way to succeed.
We as CustomerGlu take immense pleasure to connect with you via a Demo Session to give you all the know-how of our solution. You’ll find CustomerGlu as a low-code gamified UX builder that is easily integratable to drive acquisition, engagement, and retention for your business.
