By: Pankaj Sakariya

March 25, 2017

Is Gamification Effective For Ecommerce Stores? Know From Experts

Is e-commerce gamification effective in skyrocketing sales for online stores? Know everything you need to.

You already have a steady stream of online shoppers. How to go about with your Magento e-commerce store rising above the rest so that consumers keep coming over, again and again, bringing even new customers with them? The answer lies in e-commerce Gamification before you hire best Magento developers.

Gamification simply means introducing gaming strategies within your e-commerce store, motivating users to shop for more and gain rewards in return. Using the power of gamification, you can have consumers addicted to your products or brand, giving a serious punch to your competitors.

By introducing a series of rewards and challenges, gamification not only enhances the shopping experience online but also makes it highly exciting for shoppers leading to long-term brand loyalty. In spite of this, most e-commerce stores are still unaware of using this concept in the most meaningful manner.

Evolution of Gamification

eBay was among the first companies to integrate the concept of gamification in the e-commerce arena. It introduced the whole concept of bidding system, giving a competitive spirit to all the online shoppers, fighting to avail the exact same product or service. This created a lot of excitement, with more bidding taking place, ultimately resulting in increased purchases.

The best part about this bidding system was the sense of urgency created, leading to triggering of impulsive buying. Even today things remain the same, with a few other e-commerce stores, owning the concept of bidding. Another gamification strategy that translated really well was adding a timeframe. By allowing products with great deals for a specific timeframe, you create a sense of scarcity, letting shoppers jump on the deal before time runs out.

Groupon is one such company that implemented the strategy and became a global name with timeframe based products appealing to a mass audience. Alibaba’s Cyber Monday and Black Friday sales is another classic example of using this classic strategy.

3 Stages of Gamification

• Acquire customers by getting them into the gaming groove.
• Engage them by constantly offering them with games and rewards.
• Retain them by bringing about new styles of gaming strategies.

Applying gamification to eCommerce

We just saw the impact of a few gamification strategies on e-commerce, no matter what the e-commerce store size or sector is. Among these, urgency based deals and reward based buying in the form of cash backs, credits, or points, are the most common ones. However, do these strategies have a long lasting impact on sales for a long term? Of course not, since they are meant for short-term success only.

So, what things to do in order to achieve e-commerce success through long-term gamification strategies?

1. Have one time shoppers buy from you every single time

With reward programs present on your e-commerce store, you are bound to attract customers coming back to you over and over again, expecting more rewards. This has to be an ongoing system, wherein every time when customers make a purchase, they accumulate credit points, or cash back credits, for next purchase. Introducing coupons is a nice way to avail heavy discounts, by typing in the coupon code.

2. Deliver excitement by introducing virtual reality

Interactive advertisements playing digital games with users by having a simulated artificial intelligence can be highly motivating to make a purchase.

3. Recognize buyers or shoppers on social media

It is an effective way to have shoppers praised through social recognition. Just make a reference to all those customers who bought products from your e-commerce store and became winners through games played on the e-commerce store, ultimately leading to social recognition through badges, leaderboards, and progress bars.

4. Make users happy through fun-based rewards

Most people want to have fun for being rewarded, even if not in monetary terms. By offering them a range of indirect rewards such as daily bonus points, limited-time offers, contests, sweepstakes, exclusive offers, free shipping, early bird discounts, virtual currency, booking points, and more, they get inspired to shop even more for having fun in parallel.

Some Additional Gamification Methods

In addition to what we saw above, there are few more gamification strategies that you can put to use for achieving best Magento e-commerce sales. You can hire expert Magento developer in Sydney to implement the same into your store.

• Keep an FAQ section wherein you ask questions related to the product, and shippers avail good discounts on answering them right.
• Get involved in fundraising for a noble cause, and reward people with shopping points for spreading regarding the initiative on social media.
• Recognize them through badges or list them on leaderboards for contributing greatly to your e-commerce store. The contribution could be in terms of shopping too many products or probably spreading the awareness on maximum social media sites.
• Reward purchase points to shoppers who complete their customer profile, or for signing up the newsletter.
• Unlock special rewards to shoppers for completing a certain set of actions.
• Give loyalty points to those sharing a word regarding your e-commerce store on social media.

Our Final Verdict

By introducing gamification layers within your e-commerce store you are opening up omnipresent layers for heating up your e-commerce sales.