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There’s a new trend making its way through the ecommerce industry. Ecommerce gamification allows companies to add interactive features to their websites and mobile apps in an effort to make the shopping experience more fun and personal for each consumer. In fact, interest in gamification has increased drastically over the past few years, which could increase ecommerce sales according to online shopping platform Shopify. So how many online shoppers are interested in those interactive features? And how might that impact sales for ecommerce businesses?
Online Shopping
In Ask Your Target Market’s latest survey, 17% of respondents said that they have shopped online in the past day. 33% have in the past week. And 23% have within the past month. Mobile applications also provide a platform that businesses can use to showcase interactive shopping features. However, it seems to be much less popular. Just 6% of respondents have shopped using a mobile app within the past day. 9% have done so in the past week. And another 9% have shopped using mobile apps within the past month. In general, 37% of respondents said that they generally enjoy shopping online or on their mobile devices. 55% said that they enjoy shopping online more than they enjoy shopping in stores. And 72% said that they are more likely to make purchases if they find the shopping process to be enjoyable.
Interactive Shopping
Overall, just 15% of respondents said that they have shopped with ecommerce businesses that incorporated interactive shopping features many times. 21% said they’ve shopped using those types of sites or apps just once. 50% never have. And the remaining 14% were unsure. Wagbucks, Amazon, MyPoints, eBates and eBay were all mentioned as shops that have used some type of interactive features like the ability to earn points or customize products.Overall, 38% of respondents said that they like when companies include games or interactive features along with the shopping experience. 36% said that they are more likely to visit sites that include interactive features. And 30% said they are more likely to purchase from sites that have interactive features. However, 39% said that it is possible for those interactive features to distract them from actually completing purchases.
Ecommerce Gamification
Since ecommerce gamification is still a relatively new concept, businesses are still coming up with new and different ways to add those features into their shopping experiences. But there are some established routes that customers tend to prefer over others. 48% of respondents said that they like when sites or apps allow shoppers to earn points by making purchases. 38% like when they can earn points by doing other online activities. 36% like the ability to try out or view different product features in action. 35% like the ability to change colors or other features to build a sort of custom product. 25% like the ability to swipe or favorite products so that they can get a more personal selection of products going forward. 24% like the ability to input personal information or preferences so they can more easily locate the right products for them. And another 24% like filling out questionnaires or quizzes to find the best products for them.
Key Takeaways
Ecommerce gamification and adding interactive features to online shopping experiences can definitely have an impact on shoppers. But since few have actually taken part in this type of shopping experience more than one or two times, consumers might not even realize the full impact just yet. For businesses, the key to making ecommerce gamification work seems to be finding a way to make the experience more fun for consumers, without making it a distraction to the actual shopping process. This can be done as simply as an interactive points system based on purchases and other online activity. You can view the complete survey results in the widget below and be sure to click “Open Full Report” to take advantage of all the chart and filter options.Photo Credit: Fashion app Swipe&Shop by Daria Nepriakhina under CC BY 2.0What do you want to know? If you need some consumer insights on a particular topic, let us know in the comments below and we’ll consider it for an upcoming survey post.
Results were collected on June 13 via AYTM’s online survey panel.
