Gamification is a relatively new concept in the eCommerce space. But it’s quickly gaining popularity and being adopted by many brands. Why? Because gamification can help you increase engagement, loyalty, and sales for your brand.
Gamification is an exciting way to engage your customers and encourage them to take action. It’s a powerful tool that can increase conversions and boost sales.
But how do you know if gamification is right for your brand? And how do you make it work? Our WooCommerce experts will answer those questions and more. We’ll look at the different types of gamification, examples of brands that have successfully implemented it, and how you can use gamification to boost sales for your brand.
What Is eCommerce Gamification?
Gamification is a way to use game elements in non-gaming contexts. It’s an engaging, interactive design technique that encourages users to take specific actions by offering fun and rewarding experiences. In other words, it turns tedious tasks into fun ones!
Gamification can be used in many areas of eCommerce—from website design and UX to email marketing campaigns. It’s a powerful tool that can help you improve customer loyalty, increase conversions and boost sales for your eCommerce business.
The game-like elements in an application or eCommerce website service engage users and improve customers’ experience. In eCommerce, this typically means adding features like points, leaderboards, badges and levels.
Applying gamification to a user experience can incentivize specific actions. For example, they are signing up for an account or making a purchase. Its particular design elements encourage users to take action as they interact with your brand online.
It’s not about forcing people to play games; instead, it focuses on using game mechanics to achieve specific outcomes-usually positive.
Types of eCommerce Gamification
There are many types of eCommerce gamification that you can experiment with:
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User Journey Optimization (UJO)
This gamification focuses on optimizing user journeys through your website or app by making them more engaging and rewarding users for specific actions. For example, UJO could encourage users to complete their profile by offering points for each piece of information entered into it.
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Competitive Gamification
This type of gamification focuses on creating a competitive environment where users can compete against each other to achieve specific goals. For example, you might create an event where users are encouraged to earn the most points by completing specific tasks; the one with the most points at the end wins!
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Achievement-Driven Gamification (ADG)
This type of gamification focuses on creating goals for users and rewarding them when they reach them. For example, ADG could reward users with points every time they purchase on your site or app.
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Gamified Product Discovery (GPD)
This type focuses on helping customers discover new products through play. For example, GPD could offer users points for rating products that they find interesting or valuable.
Why Gamification Is Important in eCommerce
Gamification is a great solution to increase sales and user engagement online. If you are using WooCommerce, you can see great benefits from gamifying your WooCommerce site. By giving customers a more active role in their buying experience, brands can foster more profound and meaningful relationships. Gamification also has several other benefits:
#1 Making Shopping More Fun
Shoppers are likelier to buy from brands that provide a fun experience. This is especially important for younger generations, who have grown up with video games and mobile devices. They expect brands to be entertaining as well as functional.
#2 Increasing Engagement
Gamification can help marketers increase customer engagement by making shopping more interactive. This means shoppers are more likely to complete tasks like checking out, making purchases, or sharing content on social media. Gamification can make shopping more fun for customers, which helps them stay engaged with your brand and increases their likelihood to make purchases.
#3 Encouraging Positive Behavior
If customers use your site to benefit them, they’re more likely to continue doing so. Gamification can help encourage positive behavior by rewarding users with badges or points for completing tasks like creating an account, sharing on social media, or making a purchase.
#4 Increasing Brand Loyalty
Gamification can help you increase customer loyalty by creating an experience that encourages repeat visits. You could offer points or badges for reaching milestones, like making a purchase or signing up for email updates. Customers excited about earning rewards will be more likely to come back and do it again!
#5 Understanding Your Customers Better
Gamification can help you understand them better by collecting data on their behavior. You could offer customers points or badges for completing specific tasks and then use that data to determine what features they like best. You could also use gamification to improve the customer experience by tracking where users get stuck or confused so that you can make changes in response.
#6 Improve Your Brand’s Awareness
Gamification can help you reach new customers and improve brand awareness by offering them exclusive promotions or rewards. You could also choose a theme for your gamification campaign that aligns with your company’s values. For example, if you are an eco-friendly company, you could encourage customers to plant trees in exchange for points.
#7 Encourage Customer Feedback
You can use gamification to get customer feedback on different products or services. For example, you could create a game that allows users to select the features they like most about your product and then use that information to improve it.
#8 Gamification Can Boost Sales
One of the best ways to use gamification is to encourage customers to buy more from you. For example, you could create a game that rewards them for purchasing certain products or services. You could also offer exclusive discounts or other promotions to users who complete specific challenges within your app.
#9 Customers Have a Sense of Progress
Gamification can help customers feel like they’re making progress, which can be very satisfying. You can use this to your advantage by creating goals and challenges that are easy to achieve but difficult to master. This way, users will feel accomplished when completing tasks and motivated to keep playing. You could also offer exclusive discounts or other promotions to users who meet specific challenges within your app.
#10 Better Customer Experience
Using gamification tactics can make it easier for your team to understand how to interact with the platform and provide better customer service. By providing users with a fun and interactive way to learn about your product, you can also make it easier for them to understand how it works. This can help reduce the time it takes them to become familiar with your offering, making them more likely to stick around and use it.
Examples of Gamification in eCommerce: 7 Strikingly Optimized eCommerce Sites That Use Gamification
Gamification is one of the best ways to engage customers and get them to take action. And when it comes to eCommerce, there are plenty of examples of brands that have successfully implemented gamification strategies. Here are seven stunningly optimized eCommerce sites that use gamification to boost conversion:
Starbucks
Starbucks is one of the best examples of a company that uses gamification to engage customers. The brand has created a loyalty program called My Starbucks Rewards, which allows customers to earn points based on their purchases. They can then redeem those points for free food and drinks at any of their stores worldwide.
Members can redeem these points for free drinks, food items, and other perks like free Wi-Fi or early access to new menu items.
The brand also uses gamification to allow users to earn badges based on purchases and activity. For example, if you order a drink during your birthday month, you’ll get a badge celebrating your special day.
eBay
eBay is a popular online marketplace that allows users to buy and sell goods. The online store uses gamification to encourage repeat customers by rewarding them with points for completing tasks like making purchases, giving feedback on sellers and offering customer support.
Those points can be redeemed for discounts on future purchases or even cash back. For example, if a user wins an auction on the site, eBay will send a congratulatory email detailing how much money was made and how points are calculated.
eBay’s gamification strategy has helped the company increase repeat customers and reduce customer support costs. What makes eBay so powerful is that buying items on eBay isn’t just a “purchase”—users feel like they’ve won something when they make a purchase, unlike many other eCommerce sites where it feels more transactional.
Gucci
Gucci has used gamification to reach a new market: younger online shoppers and gamers. Recently, Gucci released digital avatar accessories and clothing for Pokemon Go! and Zepeto. Users can create unique avatars and chat with friends in this virtual world.
Users can also personalize their digital Gucci sneakers using the Gucci Sneaker Garage app. The app allows users to customize their sneakers with different colors and add-ons.
Users can now share their virtual creations on social media. This is an excellent way for the brand to expand its reach and appeal to a new market of young shoppers and gamers.
Many other fashion houses, including Louis Vuitton and Balenciaga, have followed Gucci’s lead in combining NFTs with gaming mechanics; this trend will usher in a new digital fashion era.
Lazada
In South East Asia, Lazada is a well-known online retailer with a reputation for providing customers with an enjoyable and engaging online shopping experience. Through their gamified brand awareness campaigns, they have maintained their position in the market while providing such experiences.
Lazada’s mobile app includes several gamified features, including referral bonuses, collectible coins, and vouchers. It also uses scarcity as an incentive to encourage customers to take advantage of limited-time deals by implementing countdown timers for each offer’s expiration date.
In addition to providing customers with a fun shopping experience, Lazada also uses gamification to engage customers in other ways. For example, the app allows users to earn rewards by sharing their purchases on social media and inviting friends to join the platform. These features help brands reach new audiences while increasing customer loyalty and engagement.
Wolt
their favorite foods from local restaurants without leaving their homes or offices.
The food delivery service Wolt’s app features a mini-game triggered when users tap the delivery timer. The game requires players to tap as many times in five seconds—and they win a coupon if they beat the company’s high score.
This suggests that gamification does not have to be complicated or expensive to affect customer satisfaction and brand awareness positively.
Wolt’s game is simple and fun but also provides a competitive element that incentivizes players to keep coming back. In addition, the brand has created a sense of urgency by making the mini-game part of its delivery process, which gets users invested in their orders.
Booking.Com Wheel of Fortune
The Wheel of Fortune is a gamification method that attracts new customers while keeping old ones engaged. Booking is an online platform with all the resources needed to make traveling easy—and they have another trick up their sleeve: including Roulette when users sign up helps get more people on board!
The Booking.com virtual roulette wheel appears in a corner or on one side of the screen and asks shoppers to spin it, revealing an automatic reward in the form of a discount on future travel. In exchange for the prize, users are asked to provide an email address so you can send them their code to redeem the prize.
Using a spinning wheel pop-up (also known as an exit intent pop-up) on your e-commerce site is an effective way to grow your business, and plugins like OptinSpin make it easy to add them to any online store. It’s asking customers to do something that will also benefit you—and incentivize them to shop with you again!
Tea Trunk Scratch Coupons
Tea trunk is an online tea store that selects the finest Indian tea leaves and blends them with natural ingredients to create its own unique varieties. The online store also uses gamification to attract new customers with scratch card coupons in their email promotions.
The online scratch cards have a code hidden underneath a layer of foil, and when the customer scratches it off, they are taken to a page where they can enter their coupon code and get a discount on their purchase.
The scratch coupons are also provided on the checkout page, where customers can enter their coupon code to get a discount on their purchases.
Using scratch and reveal coupons is a great way to incentivize customers to shop from your online store. You can also use this method for other promotions or offers, such as free shipping or discounts for first-time shoppers. They can also help a brand build its email list by requiring customers to enter their email addresses to redeem discounts.
Gamification Techniques Used in eCommerce
These are some of the best methods used in the most successful eCommerce game mechanics to ensure engagement and sell more.
Gamification For Social Marketing
Another way to implement eCommerce gamification is to gamify your Social Marketing. This is an excellent way for brands to leverage their existing community and create new ones through social marketing.
The key to successful social marketing is creating a unique consumer experience that keeps them returning for more.
Brands that create fun and rewarding experiences for their followers develop emotional connections with them. These connections lead to long-term relationships, a crucial profitable marketing strategy.
Applying gamification techniques to your social marketing strategy makes it fun and engaging to interact with your brand on social media.
Example of gamification strategy for social media includes:
- Create a leaderboard for your followers to compete against each other.
- Offering rewards and incentives for achieving specific goals or milestones.
- Create challenges that encourage your followers to participate in social activities related to your brand.
- Create a game around your products or services so customers can look inside at what makes them so unique.
Points, Rewards, and Loyalty Programmes
One of the most effective eCommerce gamification techniques for e-commerce is creating a loyalty program that rewards customers for their purchases and encourages them to keep coming back.
Not only do these programs generate repeat business, but they also encourage customers to share their experiences on social media, which can drive more sales.
Loyalty programs can be as simple or complex as you want them to be. For example, you could offer customers points for every dollar they spend that can later be redeemed on future orders. Or, you could create a points system that requires specific actions (such as sharing your site with friends) to earn rewards.
The key is ensuring your program is easy for customers to use and understand. You also want to ensure it’s rewarding enough that they’ll want to participate and share it with their friends.
In addition to increasing sales, loyalty programs can also help you get more information about your customers. You can use this data to understand better who they are and what they want from your business.
Here are some ideas on how to implement loyalty programs and points in your online store:
- Offer points that can be redeemed for discounts or in-store credit.
- Create a game around your products or services so customers can look inside what makes them so unique.
- Create a contest around your brand where users are encouraged to share their experiences with others, and the winner gets some reward (like a free product).
Gamifying The Checkout Process
Some of the biggest hurdles to online shopping have been the problems of customer indecision and customer cart abandonment.
Studies have shown that the average customer needs to visit a website 6-7 times before they are ready to purchase. This is because most websites don’t provide enough information upfront or allow visitors to interact with products in ways that encourage them to make a decision.
One way to help overcome this hurdle is to gamify the checkout process. This could be as simple as giving customers a point for each product they add to their cart, or it could be a more elaborate game that encourages shoppers to complete tasks before they can proceed.
You can also create a leaderboard that tracks the number of sales each customer makes. As customers move up the ladder, they can earn badges or other rewards for being at the top of their game.
The fun process will create a fun, interactive experience that encourages users to interact with products and services on your website.
Some other examples include:
- Offer rewards for completing all the steps in your checkout process.
- Create a leaderboard where customers can compete against each other to see who has completed their orders first.
- Offer a loyalty program that rewards customers for their purchases.
- Encourage customers to share their stories of how they use your products or services.
eCommerce Gamification For Product Customization
One of the best ways to gamify your website is through product customization. This allows consumers to create their perfect product, increasing sales and repeat purchases.
Products are often customized for users, but this is time-consuming. It can also be challenging to scale as your business grows. The idea behind gamification for product customization is to make the experience more fun and interactive so that it can be done in less time with fewer resources.
For example, with a clothing retailer like Forever 21, customers can select how many items they want in each category (tops, bottoms, etc.) and then choose specific colors and sizes for each item.
The good idea is to create a mobile app where customers can use augmented reality (AR) or virtual reality (VR) technology to make their products on their mobile devices before ordering them online.
Here are some ways to gamify product customization for your online store:
- Offer different colors or patterns for users to choose from when ordering products online.
- Creating a DIY tool where users can design their products using different combinations of features, colors, and materials.
- Give customers the option to upload their images or designs so they can customize products based on their creations. This is a great way to gamify your product customization process, as it allows customers to feel like they’re creating something unique and special.
- You could also use an AI chatbot to help customers with their customization decisions by answering questions about materials or color options.
eCommerce Gamification For Onboarding New Users
One of the biggest challenges for any business is getting users to complete their first purchase. It’s essential to ensure your product is easy for new customers, but it’s also necessary for them to feel like they’re accomplishing something. This can be done by adding gamification features.
The goal of gamification for onboarding is to make getting started with your product as fun and engaging as possible. This will help users understand how your product works, making them more likely to continue using it.
You could create a series of challenges that users have to complete before allowing access to certain features or levels. Or, you could create a product tutorial where users are guided through the process step-by-step, using game mechanics and visuals.
Here are other ways to gamify your onboarding process:
- Make your signup process more engaging by offering users rewards for completing specific actions like connecting their social media accounts or sharing your product with friends on Facebook or Twitter.
- Add a progress bar or status indicator that shows users how far they are along in the onboarding process. This can help them know when they’ve completed a particular step and provide added motivation to continue.
- Offer users a free trial, and then ask them to complete specific tasks before their trial expires. This helps you engage with users who might not be ready to buy immediately while also providing an incentive to continue using your product.
- You can even set up a leaderboard that ranks users based on how many tasks they complete during their trial period.
Gamification With Paid Promotion For Enhanced Engagement
Gamification is a powerful tool for increasing engagement and driving revenue. But it’s important to remember that it’s just one part of the puzzle. When combined with other tactics like paid promotion, your product can become even more effective at acquiring new customers and growing your business
If you want to take gamification one step further, consider adding paid promotion into the mix. This will help you reach more users and increase engagement while bringing in new leads and revenue.
Gamification allows you to offer users rewards for completing certain actions or reaching milestones, such as signing up for a free trial or installing an app update.
For instance, if you’re looking to boost downloads, consider running an ad campaign that rewards users who download and install your app with a free in-game currency or object. This will attract more users, increase engagement, and drive revenue.
You can also use your game’s leaderboard to track which of your users are engaging most with your product so that you can focus on targeting them with other ads later on.
eCommerce gamification
The benefits of gamification for eCommerce are measurable. It is worth considering implementing a gamification strategy for your store.
However, it would help if you used the game mechanics that fit your particular brand. Consider factors like your target audience, brand personality, and the game’s overall value.
Once you have identified the best game mechanics for your brand, implement them in a way that drives sales and builds relationships with customers.
By studying some of the case studies and examples mentioned in this article, you will soon be well on your way to reaping the rewards that successful gamification can bring: increased sales, brand ambassadors, and stronger customer relationships.
Ready to implement gamification techniques in your online store? If you are using WooCommerce, our WooCommerce developers can help! You can also get started using some of these WooCommerce gamification plugins.
