The Gamification of Shopping
It used to be that shopping was considered a chore. Except around Black Friday, when it turned into blood sport. But increasingly, mobile technology has made shopping more of a game. With the smartphone at the intersection between store and shopper, let the games begin! From a shopper's point of view, it's snagging the product in the cheapest, most convenient way possible. On the merchant's side, it's targeting ads, offers and incentives, geolocating, attracting new customers and keeping existing ones. In all of this, both sides are becoming increasingly strategic as they engage in this game.
Consider this story from the past holiday shopping season: A boutique on the quaint main street of Saratoga Springs, N.Y. opened at 6 a.m. on Black Friday, offering 50 percent discounts to the people already huddled in line outside its doors. At 7 a.m. the discounts dropped to 40 percent, and by 8 a.m. they were down to 30 percent. Sound like a game? The well-informed early bird gets the cheapest, juiciest worm. Elsewhere, bigger brands had special Black Friday offers that could only be accessed and activated on mobile devices. Without your smartphone, it would have been like trying to play a video game without the controller.
If the smartphone is analogous to the controller, then apps are the games, and they're what's changing both consumers’ and retailers’ behavior. Apps like BuyVia, RedLaser and eBay's ShopSavvy enable consumers to find deals by giving them both personalized knowledge of the web and collective knowledge of a product based on other users’ experiences. Then there are apps that compare prices, such as PriceGrabber, Shop Advisor and Walmart Savings Catcher. Or you can avoid the shopping arena altogether and have someone "play" as your personal gladiator, with apps like TaskRabbit, which lets the shopper hire someone to take on the crazy crowds and do the shopping for her.
How the customer plays depends on the app, because the app dictates the function. The customer might be playing several games all at once. All of this makes shopping a more fun, richer experience, and certainly more adrenaline-packed than it was pre-app. In addition, it provides more tools for retailers too, even as shoppers have become a worthier, more educated and persistent opponent.
The state of dynamic balance is that consumers feel they're getting what they want, retailers are reaching their target customers, and product is moving. There are no losers in this game. In the meantime, shopping becomes much more convenient with these omnichannel capabilities — online, offline and mobile.
For merchants, this all feels more like a game because the creative use of big data for marketing leads to more "hits." From a user experience perspective, the shopper now has better tools and information. Meanwhile, the best retailers are constantly improving website design, making the shopper more educated and informed. Given that shoppers will go from store to store to get the best deals on a basket of items — that's their game — the retailer's next level then becomes how to get the shopper to buy the whole basket of goods from its site. Therefore, it doesn't really stop at the app; retailers have to go all the way back to how smartly data is used to advance from one level of the game to the next.
There are other ways retail has gone into the gaming business. To encourage foot traffic and boost sales, the best brands are increasing their in-store entertainment value through interactive experiences. Take the example of what Carlsberg did in Denmark: it combined two complementary technologies, NFC and BLE (Bluetooth Low Energy), to deliver a cool customer engagement that extends out to social. NFC helps on the "pull" side when a customer requests info, while BLE is for the "push" side where retailers want to push info to shoppers.
Carlsberg distributed beer mats containing an NFC tag and installed BLE beacons in pubs and bars to support its Crowdit nightlife app. Users tap their phone to the NFC beer mat to download the Crowdit app. They're then able to receive special offers and promotions (e.g., free beer) prompted by the beacons installed at the point-of-sale venues.
While Carlsberg is definitely an innovator in this space, it got one thing absolutely right: The new gaming consumer's behavior always involves pricing and being social. And because of the personalized experience that retailers can offer, they're going to keep getting drawn to the new game of shopping like moths to a flame. This gamelike interaction with the shopper provides retailers an entrée to having a two-way conversation with their customers.
In some cases, retailers are taking the game analogy literally. Games and gaming have become part of a design bundle. Many brands’ shopping apps have digital add-ons (e.g., downloading a free subscription to a video game) or include a game, with rewards offered based on playing that game. Mobile advertiser Kiip helps brands reward everyday moments in apps and games. Hasbro's Nerf line partnered with Kiip on an in-app mobile couponing campaign that rewarded customers for playing their favorite games. H&M also used this strategy to promote its David Beckham campaign with a different cloud-based platform. Through data segmentation and making use of the gaming mind-set, retailers are extending their audience and gaining greater precision in their offers.
You can bet that omnichannel retailers will remain focused on this trend. Where's it all going? In the end, I think it's about playing the game in such a way that all the players in the ecosystem get to benefit, whether customers, retailers or those who move around the money. This means coming up with an app that connects data to payments to rewards to social, then all the way back to data. That's a game everyone will want in on.
Amy ter Haar is an independent consultant who works with financial services institutions and retailers to address the integration of mobile and social commerce with consumer-permissioned use of big data.