How to Gamify Your eCommerce Store to Increase Customer Loyalty

Have you ever found yourself hooked on a game, unable to stop playing until you’ve completed every level or achievement? Whether that game is an incredibly simple mobile game like Temple Run, or a complex open world RPG like The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, there are a set of psychological triggers and switches that are commonly used in video games that drive player behavior. This is what is more commonly referred to as gamification.

The power of gamification is that it’s the art of turning mundane tasks into enjoyable, engaging experiences. And it’s not just for games – eCommerce experts have been using gamification techniques to increase customer loyalty and drive sales on their online stores for a while now.

In fact, when you look back to the beginnings of Facebook and social media, gamification played a huge part in making the social media platform as gigantic as it’s become today (remember Farmville).

So in this article, we’ll dive into the world of gamification in eCommerce marketing and explore how, exactly, it can help you increase customer loyalty.

Importance of Customer Loyalty According to eCommerce Experts

Customer loyalty is essential for success in the realm of eCommerce and eCommerce marketing. Building a loyal customer base can make the difference between a successful business and one that struggles to thrive in the sea of competing online retailers.

Loyal customers are more likely to make repeat purchases, refer friends and family to your store, and leave positive reviews.

In fact, according to eCommerce experts, acquiring a new customer is five times more expensive than keeping an existing one.

Given this, it is obvious that any owner of an eCommerce company should place a high focus on growing their customer base.

The Psychology of Gamification

Gamification is more than just a fun and engaging way to get customers to interact with your eCommerce store. It taps into some of the fundamental principles of human psychology to drive behavior and increase customer loyalty.

Motivation is one of the key psychological principles behind gamification. If there is a clear feeling of direction and purpose, people are more likely to participate in an activity.

For example, when playing Super Mario Bros, the motivation for players to keep going is the desire to complete levels and save the princess.

Similarly, in eCommerce, customers need a clear motivation to keep shopping with your store. By gamifying the shopping experience, you can create a sense of purpose and motivation that keeps customers coming back for more.

Engagement is another important psychological principle behind gamification. You can lengthen the time visitors spend on your website and entice them to come back by creating an interactive and interesting experience.

For instance, when playing a video game, participants are completely absorbed in the experience and unable to put it down. Similar to this, clients are less likely to abandon your eCommerce site and more likely to make a purchase when they are actively participating in the gamified buying experience.

Finally, reward is a powerful psychological principle that drives human behavior.

In an online multiplayer game like Fortnite, for example, when players complete goals and quests, they are rewarded with in-game currency, skins, and bragging rights for coming out on top of the round. These rewards keep players motivated and engaged in the game.

In eCommerce, rewards can take the form of discounts, free shipping, and other incentives that encourage customers to keep shopping with your store. By gamifying the shopping experience and offering rewards for completing tasks or making purchases, you can increase customer loyalty and drive repeat business.

By understanding the psychological principles behind gamification, eCommerce experts can create an engaging and rewarding shopping experience that keeps customers coming back for more. That said, let’s take a look at some of the existing gamification techniques that are currently being used today.

Gamification Ideas for eCommerce Stores

Gamification in eCommerce now revolves around giving customers a pleasant and engaging experience while also rewarding them for their loyalty, just like in any video game.

So without further ado, here are 7 creative gamification ideas that eCommerce stores can implement to increase customer loyalty:

1. Implementing a Points System

Allow customers to earn points for every purchase they make, which can be redeemed for discounts, exclusive offers, or free products. When you think about many membership and loyalty cards, for example, you’ll notice that a lot of them allow you to collect and accumulate points that can eventually help give you cashbacks or discounts on future transactions. 

2. Offering Badges or Achievements

When you think about badges and achievements, you can look no further than YouTube Creator Awards. If your channel reaches 100,000 subscribers, for example, you are awarded with the Silver Play Button. Once you hit a million, you get the Gold. The highest possible achievement one can have on YouTube is the Red Diamond, which is awarded to those that reach 100 million subscribers.

In the same way, giving customers badges or achievements for completing certain actions is a good way to reward their loyalty and encourage repeat business.

You can create badges and achievements around certain things such as making a certain number of purchases, having tried or tasted everything on your menu, visiting each and every branch of your franchise in the state, or referring a certain number of friends to the store.

These challenges, when rewarded well, can make customers feel accomplished and recognized for their loyalty to your brand.

3. Creating a treasure hunt-style shopping experience

The concept of the Easter egg is common in video games. Easter eggs are the secrets, hidden references, and cultural winks and nods that can be found scattered throughout a video game.

In fact, the novel and movie Ready Player One has the concept of the Easter egg hunt as its core driver and motivator. And in the story, the reward for the player that first completes the Easter egg hunt is the ownership of a multi-billion dollar company that owns and operates the video game itself.

In your eCommerce marketing strategy, then, one way that you could apply this is by putting hidden and secret links to discounts or free products on your website, and challenge customers to find them. This can be an enjoyable approach to entice people to browse your store and find new things.

Additionally, it’s a fantastic technique to keep website visitors interested and hence lengthen the time they stay on each page (which, then, has the possibility of helping increase your SEO ranking).

4. Hosting Exclusive Events or Sales for Loyal Customers

Offer exclusive events or sales to customers who have made a certain number of purchases or reached a certain level of loyalty in your program.

These loyalty levels can be based on other metrics other than purchases. Recommendations, for example, can be a basis for loyalty. In that sense, you could run affiliate programs and then hold an awards ceremony to recognize and thank your biggest affiliates.

This can make customers feel like they’re part of a special group, and encourage them to continue shopping with your store.

5. Creating a loyalty program with tiered rewards

Offer different levels of rewards based on a customer’s loyalty, such as silver, gold, and platinum levels. This can incentivize customers to keep shopping with your store in order to reach the next level and unlock more rewards.

Again, these tiers can also be based on referrals, recommendations, and affiliate sales. If you’re a software as a service company, you could reward your affiliates with a whole free year or two of their subscription.

If you’re an eCommerce company, you can give each tier a lifetime discount, wherein their tier determines the percentage of that discount.

6. Offering Challenges or Quests

Challenges and contests are common on social media platforms because they work and are a great way to implement gamification in eCommerce marketing.

Create challenges or quests that customers can complete in order to earn rewards or discounts. For example, a sporting goods store could challenge customers to log their daily steps for a month in exchange for a discount on their next purchase.

Similarly, a fashion brand could challenge its customers to create multiple outfit-of-the-day posts that explore different ways and combinations that they could put together using items or pieces from their store. The one with the most ideas wins the challenge.

7. Offering Surprise Rewards or Discounts

One of the most interesting and effective gamification techniques is the surprise reward. Surprise and delight customers by offering unexpected rewards or discounts. This can help to create a sense of excitement and anticipation among customers, and encourage them to keep shopping with your store.

Take note, however, that this is different from the blind boxes that have populated toy stores, where kids would purchase and unbox a package in order to find out what toy they were able to get. This is often referred to as a gacha, where you won’t know what you get until you remove the packaging.

Rather, the surprise rewards that we’re talking about can be likened to winning a lottery. You can, for example, randomly reward a person from your pool of loyalty card members every month and reward them with something unexpected and special. This not only raises their impression of your brand, but also fosters deeper kinship and loyalty between you and your customers.

Examples of Gamification in eCommerce

Gamification in eCommerce is not just a theoretical concept but has already been successfully implemented by several online retailers. Here are some examples of eCommerce stores that have successfully implemented gamification to increase customer loyalty:

1. Nike’s Run Club app

Nike’s Run Club app is a prime example of gamification in eCommerce. It gamifies running, making it more than just a physical activity. Users can track their runs, set goals, and compete with their friends for top positions on the leaderboard.

The app rewards users with badges, trophies, and other incentives for achieving specific goals, such as running a certain distance or completing a certain number of runs.

2. Starbucks’ Rewards program

Starbucks has created a loyalty program that gamifies the coffee-buying experience. Customers earn stars for every purchase, which they can then redeem for free drinks or food items. Customers can also level up to earn even more rewards and benefits, such as birthday drinks and free refills.

3. Duolingo’s language-learning app

Duolingo’s gamified approach to language learning has made it one of the most popular language-learning apps in the world.

The app uses gamification techniques such as points, badges, and leaderboards to encourage users to complete language-learning challenges. The app also incorporates elements of social networking, allowing users to connect with friends and compete against them for high scores.

These examples demonstrate how gamification can be an effective tool for increasing customer loyalty in eCommerce. By creating a more engaging and rewarding shopping experience, eCommerce stores can build stronger relationships with their customers and encourage them to become repeat buyers.

Ready to Level-Up Your eCommerce Marketing Strategy?

In conclusion, gamification is not just a buzzword, it’s a proven method to increase customer loyalty. eCommerce businesses that are able to incorporate gamification into their customer experience have a higher chance of creating a loyal customer base. Gamification could be the secret to accomplishing this as eCommerce expands, making it more crucial than ever to distinguish out from the competition.

As eCommerce experts with years of experience in digital marketing, we encourage eCommerce store owners and managers to explore the various gamification tactics discussed in this post and to consider implementing them in their own stores. You’ve got nothing to lose, after all, and everything to gain by simply adding some mechanics that will add a little more fun to your already successful strategy.