In the retail business, only one thing really counts – sales. If you are not selling the products on offer in your store, you will not be in business for long.

Historically, retailers have tried various tactics to try to get consumers to spend more money, some of them successful, some of them not.

For a long time, using promotions was a tried and tested method of getting consumers to “buy-in” to a particular store or a particular brand.

This was especially true before the advent of online shopping when consumers had to physically go to the store, and spend time there exposed only to the brands and offers of the store manager’s choice.

That day is long gone.

Nowadays, omnichannel consumers are comparing products and prices online before ever entering a bricks-and-mortar store, and when they do, they have a device with them to compare and research on the fly.

So, the question is: how can online retailers cash in on uber-connected consumers and get them to spend money in their online store as opposed to someone else’s?

The answer: gamify.

Defining gamification

Gamification is nothing new. Modern educational organisations use numbers, letters, and ranking systems to motivate students; military institutions, on the other hand, have been using badges and rankings for much longer.

What is relatively new, however, is gamification in a digital retail context.

Opinions differ on the best definition of gamification in this digital context, but the following general definition works well: “Gamification is the use of game mechanics and game design techniques in non-game contexts.”

Non-game contexts like, for example, online shopping.

Also Read: 3 reasons why cryptocurrencies and gamification go hand-in-hand

But can inserting a game-like element into your online store really make a difference to your bottom line? Well, in a word, yes. It all comes down to motivation.

Motivation

To market any product to anyone, we need to understand customer motivation. “What drives our potential customers to behave in the way they do? Why would they spend their precious time and (hopefully) money on our products or services?”, says Kirsty Robinson, the business owner of Up8 Marketing, specializing in design and marketing.

A successful marketer, therefore, is one who understands what motivates consumer behaviour. But that’s not enough. The marketer must then go on to validate the motivation and present a suitable solution to the consumer.

Motivation, however, can be broadly divided into two subtypes: intrinsic and extrinsic.

Intrinsic motivation is what drives us to perform or complete a task simply for the enjoyment of performing or completing said task. It could be a sport that we play just for the fun of it or a puzzle that presents us with a stimulating challenge.

Extrinsic motivation, on the other hand, is what drives us to perform or complete a task so that we can earn an external reward or avoid a punishment. Closely related to the pursuit of money, achievement, social status and respect, extrinsic motivation is what drags most of us to work in the morning, the gym in the evening, and urges us to buy that new dress, piece of jewellery or sports car.

If we dig a little deeper into motivation, six perspectives can be differentiated, which can become relevant in gamification.The six perspectives of motivation:

1. Trait

Individual characteristics such as the need for achievement, power, and affiliation. Individuals with these traits can be motivated if the gamified element emphasizes success, competition, and membership.

2. Behaviourist learning

Performance-based immediate feedback influences the probability of future behaviour. Individuals are motivated by immediate feedback, either positive or negative, and by the offer of rewards.

3. Cognitive

Motivation is dependent on situation-specific goals, expectancies, and values of consequences. Individuals are motivated if the gamified element contains clear and achievable goals and highlights the consequences of those goals.

4. Self-determination

Especially relevant for fostering intrinsic motivation, as mentioned above. Individuals are motivated by experiencing feelings of competence, autonomy, and social relatedness.

5. Interest

A content-specific motivational variable that evolves in interaction with the environment. Individuals are motivated by their relation to the subject matter of a task or environment.

6. Emotion

Cognitive and motivational processes can be influenced by instructional strategies. Individuals can be motivated if gamification decreases negative feelings like fear, envy, and anger; and increases positive feelings like sympathy and pleasure.

These motivational elements apply to all of us at some point or another, but another major contributing factor is personality.

Personality Type

Just like opinions, we’ve all got one. And by the time we reach adulthood, our personality is pretty much fixed. (Just like viewpoints, we’ve all got one. And by the time we reach maturity, our personality gets pretty much fixed.)

In gamification, personality types, or player types as they are often referred to, are split into four types:

1. Achievers – They are all concerned about points and status.

2. Explorers – Not bothered much about badges, but they want to see new secrets.

3. Socializers – They are fond of experiencing fun through interaction with other gamers.

4. Killers – They hold a winning attitude. Extremely happy to see other gamers lose.

In eCommerce, we are not in the business of designing games per se, so we can leave socializers and killers out.

Achievers and explorers, however, make up a huge slice of your potential customers; and it is these two personality types you can really engage with by adding gamification elements to your online store.

Buyer personas

Aspects of our personalities are often used by companies to build buyer personas.

Market research and real customer data are combined with certain personality types to create hypothetical customers. Marketing and sales departments use these buyer personas to plan their activities based on the perceived motivational factors that influence the personas.

In short, we attempt to appeal to imaginary unchanging consumers. But the very concept of an unchanging customer is naive at best and has to be complemented with contextual information. Our personalities may not change, but our needs do, as well as our moods.

For example, there are times when consumers are looking for a specific product and will be very focused on their activities to find the product they want. Any other product that is not relevant to their needs will be quickly filtered out or ignored completely.

At other times, however, consumers might not have a clear idea of what they are looking for; they may well be simply using the internet to find inspiration. With no clear need to be fulfilled, their mood plays a bigger role, and they are therefore far more susceptible to products that appeal to their mood.

So although the consumer was the same person in our scenario, their behaviour was very different due to their circumstances (context).

This scenario occurs all the time in online retail. Sometimes a potential customer will enter your site with a very specific need. It is often the case that the person will have done some Google research first, and will enter your site on a specific product page, having been directed there from Google. This is clearly a non-game context, but by gamifying the product page, you can turn the visit into a profitable customer action.

At other times, a visitor may stumble upon your online store while browsing. Using a gamified element on your front page to motivate a casual browser can result in a conversion that would otherwise have been a simple bounce.

In layman terms – by offering your customers, casual or otherwise, some variety of reward for interacting with your store, you provide them with the motivation to proceed and significantly increase the chances of conversion.

With the sheer amount of information at hand via Google, if a consumer has found their way to your online store, they are almost certainly interested in something that you offer.

However, the ubiquity of choice will come into play if you cannot provide them with a reason to stay in your store and buy from you.

A big appreciation to Rob Brooks for providing deep insights on the applicability of Gamification for eCommerce sales.

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Image Credit: Zany Jadraque

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