Gamification and customer experience in online retail: a qualitative study focusing on ethical perspective

Abstract

This paper aims to investigate the effect of gamification in engaging and motivating consumers for online shopping and also the use of gamification to enhance sales. Moreover, this study has also explored the ethical concerns in gamified marketing. This is a qualitative study to investigate the effect of gamification during online shopping and the ethical issues involved in gamified marketing. Semi-structured interviews with ten gamification experts are conducted and analyzed through NVivo. The themes that emerged from qualitative analysis are the applicability of gamification in online retail, consumer experiences in gamified retail, and ethics and challenges in gamification. Semantic analysis is performed, and as per the viewpoint of the gamification experts, it was found that the perception of ethics in gamification is negative, which shows that there are many unethical practices in gamified marketing. This paper shows that by focusing on every relational aspect of consumer engagement, retailers can build trust and retain their most valuable stakeholders — the customers, thereby addressing the crucial negative concerns of gamified marketing. This research is one of its types to explore the significant ethical issues that affect consumers in the retail context. The undertaking of this study in an emerging economy adds further insight into gamified retail literature by generalizing the applicability of gamified studies across geographic contexts.

Introduction

Covid-19 has dramatically disrupted the retail sector, with the shock differing massively between brick-and-mortar stores versus online shops, essential versus non-essential stores, and small versus large retailers (Ali, 2020). The virus gradually slows down the economy and leads to recession. Social distancing is the only effective way to eliminate the coronavirus pandemic. The business environment is changing rapidly under the threat of Covid-19, and it will continue until the virus is not eliminated. The pandemic causes many problems for retailers. Also, Covid-19 forced consumers to slow their spending ability. Hence, the retail market faced many challenges as the retail market is hammered by both sides, the consumers and the government (Szász et al., 2022). Retailers are facing the struggle to cope with the ongoing crisis and competition (Thukral, 2021). E-commerce is now the best hope for retailers to survive the Covid-19 crisis. The pandemic and work-from-home concept changed consumers’ purchasing habits and shopping manners as well (Sheth, 2020). Online shopping was not everyone’s choice before the pandemic, but now they are forced to do so. With the threat of this crisis, consumers want to shop from the comfort of their homes, but retailers need to give them the experience to stay in the market. The Covid-19 impact on the retail sector has largely been dependent on lockdown and social distancing (Donthu & Gustafsson, 2020). According to a Nielsen report, the e-commerce market share increased to almost 10% of sales compared to 6% less in 2019.

Due to recent technological advancements, gamification has emerged: non-monetary incentives take a boost in every sphere of human life which is generally a motivational technique using video game elements, such as digital points, and badges. Moreover, it is an innovative approach to using game mechanics in a non-gaming context and, in retailing also, gamification is being used (Deterding et al., 2011; Insley & Nunan, 2014). Gamification in online retail draws the attention of the consumer. According to Harvard Business Review, a 5% increase in customer attention leads to a 25–30% rise in earnings. Gamification is a valuable strategy for enticing customers, and over 87% of merchants want to employ it in the next 5 years.

Gamification makes shopping fun and attractive by increasing motivation, engagement, and loyalty (Insley & Nunan, 2014; Karać & Stabauer, 2017). Now, retailers started to enhance the online customer experience by implementing game elements and mechanics in e-commerce to increase customer engagement on their sites (Insley & Nunan, 2014). Gamification is assumed to be a critical factor in market strategies (Hamari et al., 2014). Every e-commerce website and retailer have several opportunities to use gamification. Through gamification, feeling, satisfaction, and relatedness are promoted and they significantly enhance engagement (Pasca et al., 2021). Because games are intended to be entertaining, they may provide good experiences and encourage users to stay engrossed in the game for an extended amount of time (Deterding et al., 2011). In order to create such a condition, marketers would greatly profit from properly incorporating elements of game design into their product/service. However, researchers and marketers have struggled to provide an effective response addressing when and how gamification should be employed since the notion of gamification was created (Gatautis et al., 2016). Although there are numerous examples of businesses that have successfully incorporated game elements into their value propositions — simple loyalty programs like Starbucks and more elaborate gamified systems like Foursquare come to mind — there is no single solution or framework that can reliably deliver on this promise to replicate these successes (Hamari et al., 2014; Nacke & Deterding, 2017). Before the pandemic, many did online shopping, but they did not believe it was convenient. Gamification can add several features to give great experience like try-on, awareness, transparency, and many more which will significantly increase the visit rate on the retailer’s website (De Canio et al., 2021a, 2021b). In addition to this, gamification also motivates users to perform a specific activity which brings enhanced customer experience (Minge & Cymek, 2020).

According to Harvard Business Review, a rise in customer attention by 5% generates a 25–95% increase in profit. Gamification appears to be an excellent tactic to enhance sales, brand awareness, and customer loyalty. The introduction of gamification in the professional environment has paternalistic qualities that have the same challenges and dangers as paternalism in digital nudging, resulting in the same problems and restricting the users’ autonomy and freedom of choice (Hassan & Hamari, 2020). The purpose of this study is to identify the ethical concerns involved with gamification originating in gaming and video games; the dynamics and hazards of these settings are partially translated to gamification. Moreover, the word “gamification” is still relatively new, so there is paucity of literature, particularly at the online retail level. This study contributes to the investigation of ethical concerns by demonstrating several unethical activities in gamification marketing that undermine customers’ trust and experiences. This paper aims at strengthening the literature related to retailing and marketing as companies marketing strategies are increasingly incorporating fast-trending gamification (Yang et al., 2017). Therefore, the study aims to develop a conceptual framework that focuses on exploring the effect of gamification on consumer engagement in the context of online retail during the coronavirus pandemic.

The viewpoint of gamification experts about unethical gamification is vital as they enlighten designers and marketers about when and how this affects them, and, perhaps more significantly, when they provide these kinds of experiences how consumers react to a particular game. This might result in the more successful deployment of gamification from the standpoints of both the consumer and the marketers.

Literature review

Gamification mechanics

Gamification is a marketing and business strategy applied to increase customer engagement and loyalty, and gamification can influence customer engagement and encourage behaviors, supporting and motivating users toward tasks (Hsu & Chen, 2018). First, when merchants want to include gamified mechanisms in their mobile retailing applications, they should do it through challenge levels, just as in video games (Aydınlıyur et al., 2021). The app, like WeChat, is gradually expanding functions; this strategy has enabled the app to become China’s first multipurpose app, with users spending more than 360 min each day on it. Gamification is a marketing and business strategy applied to increase customer engagement and loyalty, and gamification can influence customer engagement and encourage behaviors, supporting and motivating users to the task. Gamification enhanced consumers’ knowledge, attitudes, behavior, and reward-based game elements to enhance sustainable behavior outcomes. Organizations can use serious game elements to promote desirable and sustainable behavior (Shevchuk et al., 2019).

Gamification technology can change desired behavior by increasing consumer loyalty awareness and developing an eco-friendly mindset. Game design enhances the efficiency to change behavior. Sometimes, if game design is inappropriate, it reduces replayability or brings a lack of fun. For applying games, every aspect of context and mechanism needs to consider to achieve desired behavior change outcomes (Haque et al., 2014). For designing a game, a person who needs the context and target players who game well should be tested in the real world to lead to better outcomes. For engagement, consider the fun and engagement of players because, without engagement, there will be no desired result (Epstein et al., 2021). A gamification platform is developed to motivate behavioral change by increasing awareness and consumer engagement using a pervasive application that analyzes context, sends personalized messages, and manages gamification peer competition and feedback (Soares et al., 2021). Gamification contributes to the value creation of customers in the retail context. When gamification applies in an activity, it affects the hedonic value, which is positive. Gamified motivators lead to a psychological outcome that changes consumer behavior (Gatautis et al., 2021). The satisfaction of hedonic value is better than the reward. Hedonic value provides better-continued engagement. Gamification with continued engagement is positively associated with brand engagement (Hogberg et al., 2019).

Gamification and retail experiences

Gamification in online retail contains the potential to affect a meaningful set of outcomes for service firms throughout the consumer decision process (Hofacker et al., 2016). The retail landscape adopting innovative technologies to stay ahead as aggressive competition prevails within the industry. Recently, retail firms started to employ several technologies including gamification. Gamification among others carries out marketing efforts efficiently (Jayasooriya et al., 2020). Encouraging customers to enter a data disclosure process is a challenge for retailers. Retailers facing customers with low trust levels need to enhance the design of their data requests. Relevance illustrating game elements amplify the positive effect and increase hedonic and meaningful engagement (Bidler et al., 2020). Consumer brand stickiness will grow if gamified marketing is executed successfully. Fun is a crucial component of gamified marketing; in the activities thereof, the information and prizes provided by salespeople must pique customers’ initial attention before allowing them to participate in the activities. The mechanisms design generates incentives such as enjoyment and attraction and gives distinct feedback so that customers may enjoy a fascinating game and join into the competition unwittingly in quest of glory (Lu & Hu, 2020).

Gamification is a motivating strategy for increasing user involvement. Indeed, the key to gamification success is emotionally engaging individuals and inspiring them to attain their goals. Human motivation can be classified into two types: intrinsic and extrinsic. Extrinsic motivation is driven by an external element that motivates a person to perform something in the expectation of receiving a reward. On the other hand, intrinsic motivation refers to action driven by internal incentives such as enjoyment or pleasant sensations (Ushakov & Shatila, 2021). When combined with monetary rewards, gamification loses its efficiency and positive effect because players do not get satisfaction and enjoyment, but the extrinsic motivation to receive a discount shopping-related game increases satisfaction with the retailer and loyalty (Bauer et al., 2020b). If gamification and social interaction combined with marketing show much potential, they help promote user engagement and influence user behavior. Gamification and social networks strengthen the bond between consumers and merchants. Gamification can increase user participation in online shopping. Social interaction motivates users to participate in the use of the gamified system (Gajanova & Radisic, 2021). Nowadays, the gamification approach sparked interest as a new trend of increasing customer engagement in business-to-consumer contexts like online retail. They identify that many game mechanisms used in designing games, among which are three key factors, feedback, gift, and challenges, are more effective in customer engagement. The access platform and gaming device during gamification play an important role. Most people play games on their smartphones. The interaction between accessing the games and gaming devices affects the brand attitude and memory of the consumer differently. However, consumer engagement and flow experience mediate access platform and gaming device effect on brand memory and attitude (Sreejesh et al., 2021). Advertising gamification increases consumer engagement and motivation. An interactive gamified experience increases attitude, brand image, and brand attitude (Xu et al., 2020).

In this regard, as noted in the research (Insley & Nunan, 2014), harnessing customers’ inherent motives might lead to obtaining consumers’ preferences. Furthermore, by implementing communication campaigns to clarify and explain how consumers may purchase online, businesses can increase the level of online channel knowledge of their current and prospective customers, reinforcing their engagement, enriching previous online shopping experiences, and increasing their proneness to online purchases via mobile devices (Dwivedi et al., 2021). Mobile apps with gamified components can thus be more versatile, convenient, dynamic, and entertaining. Indeed, gamification is part of a larger company’s plan to increase platform-user engagement, and social and gamified cues should be deployed consistently by the platform to have an evident influence on end users. On the other hand, gamification may result in a shift in marketing techniques (Canio et al., 2021a, 2021b). Implementation of the gamification approach gives benefits to support behavior change. A survey shows that gamification leads to a positive effect on behavior change (Zain et al., 2021). User engagement meant a desirable and essential human response to computer-mediated activities like gamification. The user engagement concept has two views, deep engagement and meaningful engagement (Suh et al., 2017). Casual games motivate learners to engage in the online learning platform. They use two groups of participants, one of whom can play a casual game for a maximum of 5 min every time they log in (Gooch et al., 2016). The other group did not have the option to play a game at any time. They are playing casual games to increase their level of engagement. Also, the group that played the game answered most answers correctly and logged in significantly instead to those in the non-game condition. It concludes that gamified activity motivates learners to come back to play a casual game (Kapp et al., 2020). Dynamic pricing is growing due to various factors: demand data, technology, and decision support tools. A survey was conducted to understand retail and consumer perspectives on dynamic pricing and gamification. Retail companies have to prepare for the changes in logistics due to dynamic pricing in traditional ways. Retail stores are ensuring the supply chain according to demands (Guvenc et al., 2020). Prior service-related research has demonstrated that gamification is an effective technique for increasing customer loyalty, encouraging positive word of mouth, and increasing engagement with the given service. Furthermore, providing hedonic values (one of gamification’s key foundations) has proven to be a successful technique for engaging customers and encouraging repeat purchase intentions (Shi et al., 2022). Rewards, competition, achievement, challenges, and gaining knowledge represent consumers’ motives for using the app. The use of gamified applications influenced users’ attitudinal loyalty toward the core service (Kunkel et al., 2021).

Ethics

There is a huge debate among researchers about moral issues and business ethics in marketing gamification. Ethics is defined as a “collection of beliefs and rules that assist us in judging whether behavior helps or damages sentient creatures” in this context (Paul et al., 2003). The application of ethics by Andrzej Marczewski to gamification designers and the systems that employ such applications are also beneficial (Marczewski, 2017). He further enunciated that the focus here is on the aim of the gamification designer to develop systems that benefit rather than hurt others while defining damage is somewhat subjective. The ethics of gamification has been studied more as a practice-based approach to persuasion in the extant literature (Deterding et al., 2011). Thus, we choose a normative approach, which we think is best suited to investigating ethics in action and may help organizations choose ethical courses of conduct (Michalos, 1995).

Personalized digital marketing, for example, works by tracking internet surfing histories via cookies. However, it raises concerns about how informed viewers are about this process (Álvarez-Bermejo et al., 2016). Gamification ethics can be intellectually located within this tradition of technology ethics as part of a further sub-discipline called applied ethics, which seeks to apply theories, normative standards, concepts, and methods developed within ethics to, for example, inquiries about specific technologies. Gamification ethics is a new yet fast-expanding discipline that seeks to investigate ethical challenges presented by gamification (Hyrynsalmi et al., 2017). In unethical gamification, the consumers are deceived for the greatest profit rather than persuading people into doing things, and this coercion is generally figured out by the customers when they are exposed to such an environment (Goethe, 2019). They would then struggle to remove the gamified environment and such offensive design and also prefer to communicate their displeasure with the design in a very public way (Goethe, 2019; Lowry et al., 2013). It is critical to take an ethical approach to gamification and imagine yourself as the user of what you are developing, and the design should embrace the intelligence of the users. After this, your users will automatically discuss the design with the rest of the world, and brand loyalty will emerge (Goethe, 2019).

Gamification and ethics

The introduction and use of persuasive technology to encourage a change of attitude and behavior, like other technologies, may have both good and bad consequences for the user (Thorpe & Roper, 2019). The ethical implications of gamification are rarely discussed. Gamification combines the entertaining world of games with the serious world of business, and as we will see, the collision of the two realms creates a number of normative tension points (Kagan, 2018; Thorpe & Roper, 2019). On a number of grounds, critics have called into doubt the moral validity of gamification. Given that gamification is one of the most rapidly disseminating behavioral techniques in business, there has been less serious research into the ethical implications of gamification in business than one might assume (Kim & Werbach, 2016; Goethe, 2019; Thorpe & Roper, 2019). Extrinsic rewards must be offered often when gamifying and employing extrinsic rewards to maintain motivation levels high. According to research, persons who had an inherent motivation from the start might be demotivated by gamification and felt like guinea pigs forced to respond to stimuli. Kim and Werbach (2016) stated that the ethical status of a gamification practice is mainly, but not only, decided by the extent to which the practice is exploitative, is manipulative, is purposefully or inadvertently harmful to the people involved, and has a socially unacceptable level.

Manipulation

Manipulation is defined as any behavior that infringes on the autonomy of users. It entails elements such as openness, consent, and self-reflection (Kim, 2021; Kim & Werbach, 2016). Manipulation is demonstrated by the following examples: companies/brands that do not reveal the content and aims of a gamified system because consumers would otherwise not engage (Kim, 2021; Kim & Werbach, 2016). Sometimes, the users may not consent to data gathering if online service providers do not explain privacy conditions or games that take use of players’ additive or obsessive habits in order to make it tough for users to quit playing (Kim, 2021; Kim & Werbach, 2016; Arora & Razavian, 2021; Kriz et al., 2022). Lastly is when gamification features and procedures are hidden from individuals to whom they are applied and when gamification tactics limit rational self-reflection and weaken autonomy in unacceptable ways (Kim, 2021; Vashisht & Sreejesh 2015; Kim & Werbach, 2016; Arora & Razavian, 2021; Kriz et al., 2022).

Exploitation

This concept refers to the employment of gamified components to push people to accomplish more than their position requires. It describes circumstances where an enterprise exploits the social environment to get more work done without a tangible reward for the customer (Kim, 20215; Kim & Werbach, 2016; Kriz et al., 2022). Business ethicists have started discussing the moral debates about the gamification of labor (Kim, 2021; Kim & Werbach, 2016; Vdov, 2020; Kriz et al., 2022). According to the lower part of the Octalysis framework: black hat, exploitation in gamification means manipulating the users, and the drivers of dissatisfaction and negative customer experience are scarcity, avoidance, and unpredictability (Vdov, 2020). Generally, a poorly designed gamified system is the biggest negative motivator and the reason behind this dissatisfaction (Kim & Werbach, 2016; Vdov, 2020).

Harms

Gamification providers have no intention of causing physical or psychological harm to participants. However, this might happen inadvertently when it comes to damaging behavior, the player may have the major ethical responsibility (Kim, 2021; Kim & Werbach, 2016; Kriz et al., 2022). Nonetheless, designers should try to predict or react to unforeseen negative events wherever feasible (Vdov, 2020). While these ethical concerns are not comprehensive, they are illustrative of the negative consequences that creators and users of gamification programs may have on users (Weiss, 2019). For example, within a game, it may be permissible to manipulate or deceive someone, but such practices are scarcely acceptable in the real world, and if a gamification approach that transposes a game-world norm to the real world is used, ethical difficulties may develop (Arora & Razavian, 2021).

This study is an attempt to offer an analytical overview of the existing research in the field of gamification and customer experience in online retail with a special focus on the ethical perspective. Besides that, the present study is aimed to propose a conceptual framework to conduct empirical research to study the relationship between gamified mechanics and customer engagement and experience. On the basis of the literature review the following research questions are framed:

• oRQ-1- > How do gamified mechanics engage and motivate consumers in context to online retail?
• pRQ-2- > How do consumers react to gamified retailing experiences?
• qRQ-3- > What are the ethical concerns in the field of gamification?

Research methodology

This study used a qualitative method to understand online shopper behavior using gamified retail and consumer experience. Data was collected through semi-structured in-depth interviews by developing an extensive interview guide based on a literature review. Although it provided some structure for the interviews, participants could share other issues and ideas that were not included in the interview questions. The interviews were conducted with open-ended questions as shown in the Appendix. The guide consisted of different themes regarding how to use gamification themes including engagement, including retention, personalization, barriers, and duration of visits. After discussing their experiences, and what they liked and disliked, we asked for information about the gamification practices they used. We prompted them to share their thoughts about the game challenge design, including their perceived impacts. Judgment sampling, a form of non-probability sampling, was used to select the sample. The sample consisted of 10 participants for the interview. The participants were invited through LinkedIn with a written request to participate in the study mentioning the topic of the study.

All the participants willingly gave their consent for the interview. The inclusion criterion for expert interviews was prior experience in gamification in connection to online retail apps in one or more of the following fields: game design, web design, user experience design (UX), and research. Interviews were taken online through voice and video calls. Interviews took an average of 30 min. The interviewees (a) were highly educated and (b) had experience with technology in general and gamification in particular. Participants were guaranteed strict confidentiality. The details of participants’ age, gender, and education level were obtained during the interview as shown in Table 1.

Table 1.

Demographics of respondents

ID	Age	Date	Education level	Gender	Place	Profession
R1	33	12/01/2022	Doctorate	Female	Lucknow	UX Researcher
R2	35	19/12/2021	Post graduate	Male	Karnataka	Program Manager
R3	24	19/12/2021	Post graduate	Female	Lucknow	Associate Product Manager
R4	30	14/12/2021	Under graduate	Male	Bihar	CEO-Gamification Labs
R5	45	18/10/2021	Post graduate	Male	Mumbai	Head Gamification
R6	30	14/10/2021	Post graduate	Female	Mumbai	Social Media Marketing Specialist
R7	38	21/12/2021	Post graduate	Male	Colombia	Gamification Designer
R8	40	20/12/2021	Post graduate	Male	Hungary	Business Stimulation
R9	41	15/12/2021	Post graduate	Male	Delhi	Principal Product Manager
R10	26	05/10/2021	Post graduate	Female	Karnataka	Product Manager

After completion, the transcripts were analyzed using NVivo. NVivo is one of the most widely used qualitative data analysis software tools (Bonello & Meehan, 2019). The NVivo 12 software was used to simplify the coding process, and audit trail, making the results credible and dependable (Soni et al., 2019; Richards & Hemphill, 2018; Mustafa et al., 2020; van Mastrigt et al., 2015). Furthermore, utilizing the NVivo 12 program and text analysis techniques based on word similarity, the findings of the interviews were automatically collated and coded. Sentiment analysis was used to comprehend and categorize emotions through characteristics and phases that will earn favorable, neutral, or unfavorable evaluations from interviewees to increase interpretation. NVivo 12 has a function for automatically identifying feelings in text that also reduces the subjectivity of human analysis. Sentences can be classified as moderately positive, very positive, moderately negative, or very negative. Comments that are not categorized into one of these four categories are regarded as neutral (Pudaruth et al., 2018). NVivo’s auto-coding function does not attempt to categorize an entire comment as positive or negative; instead, it examines words in isolation.

As a result, some comments are labeled as both moderately positive and moderately positive, or extremely negative positive and very negative. These findings from sentiment auto-coding are depicted visually in Fig. 1 above.

Fig. 1.

Semantic auto coding analysis using NVivo

Results and discussion

Gamification implementation delivers a more engaging experience by engaging users in adopting certain behaviors by reducing boredom and overcoming weariness. Furthermore, gamification is not just a philosophy that allows for behavior modification, but it also has a technological component. The gamification model’s possible use is thought to produce emotions to relieve stress on engagement, motivation, friendly competition, cooperation, and behavior modification in many situations, including activities, customer loyalty, and consumer experience (Saputra & Rahmatia, 2021). The data analysis reveals several critical themes grounded empirically and well supported by evidence gathered from interview quotes.

Applicability of gamification in online retail

Gamification has shown to be a beneficial tactic in online retail. According to the findings of this study, the game components inspire a customer to spend more time on a gamified app, which increases traffic and screen time for shops.

“Gamification is actually for me, it’s, it’s something that is subconsciously always there” (R1). Another gamification expert says that “gamification is an exciting tool to make the process more interesting and interactive” (R6).

Gamification increases fun in its use as shown under the sub-themes in Fig. 2. This occurs due to the dynamics process’s influence on the player’s mental state while expressing strategic behaviors and actions (Saputra & Rahmatia, 2021).

“Add fun to the activity or, you know, it is encouraging or entertaining because of the complicated nature” (R5).

Fig. 2.

Theme 1 and subthemes describing the applicability of gamification

The next several years will see significant advancements in mobile technology, including the widespread deployment of 5G in major metropolitan regions. Retail applications, particularly those with physical stores, should explore ways to gamify their app services using this cutting-edge technology. Gamification employs a variety of mechanisms such as points, levels, challenges, leader boards, and many others to improve the user experience. Retail profits increase as a result of gamification. This is because, as a psychologist, the human mind is constantly competitive, and people enjoy gamification in retail which has various advantages, including increased customer retention and loyalty as also shown in Fig. 2.

Customer retention is the ultimate objective for merchants since it aids in profit growth. Gamified retail may also aid in communicating with customers if correctly and efficiently designed. Gamification allows customers to interact with brands, which increases a customer’s loyalty to the brand. Retailers find it tough to provide an enriching in-store experience in the current environment. Online shopping has become a must, and gamified applications provide.

consumers with an unforgettable experience—playing games. Gamification is already being applied in various apps in unique and efficient ways. However, it promises to have the most influence on the consumer experience in retail. Vendors may increase consumer loyalty and engagement, brand exposure, and income by embracing gamification and finding new methods to include it in their apps.

Figure 2 also demonstrates that gamification enhances the overall experience of consumers. It improves the quality of time spent on these retail websites. It makes the experience fun and worth it. Consumers value avoiding the hassle of stores and being able to shop “whenever you want, there are no set opening hours,” enabling shopping activities to be an option during time slots that might have previously been reserved for entertainment activity as also discussed by Insley and Nunan (2014).

Consumer experiences in gamified retail

Consumers get a playful, pleasant, and enjoyable experience using gamification. Respondents talk about gamification mechanics, which help increase engagement and enhance the experiences. Points, leaderboards, competitions, mini-games, and badges are primary mechanics.

“Gamification is more about exclusivity, like, for example, if there are like three dresses that are super exclusive and they are, they are cheap, they are not costly, but you, but you can only unlock them when you reach a level, right? Or a level of loyalty. Moreover, I think that then becomes a nice motive for me actually to play the game or be a part of it” (R3).

Gamification is a valuable technique for improving the customer experience. To engage customers, retailers employ a variety of gamified technologies. This is the digital era, and great consumer experiences may lead to better earnings.

“It is a creative call, new different experience.” (R6).

Retailers recognize this and are using gamification as an engagement tactic to attract customers without deviating from the central premise of the business, resulting in increased sales. On the other hand, gamification must be deliberately implemented as part of a bigger company strategy to influence customer behavior. Several merchants utilize these approaches to demonstrate the effectiveness of gamification. Nike + is one such example. It is a fitness app that has been gamified. They monitor their customers’ activities and gather their data. After tracking the data, they provide it based on the points obtained. They employ game mechanics such as points, badges, and leaderboards, and uses gamification as a market tactic to improve revenues. ASOS is a prominent example in the fashion retail business. They allow their customers to create their outfits, which allows them to be creative and, as a result, enhances engagement and improves the ASOS customer experience.

“Gamification, which is everything about positive reinforcement, it is about. Happy moments in life. It is about, I mean, that is the reason why people still use fees for competent profits. That is the reason why people upload so many photographs on Instagram, or they come to life, and they move up the value chain because they are all positive reinforcements.” (R9).

2arConsumer experience is a goal that may be attained via correct and successful gamification implementation in retail. Gamifying your loyalty program improves your customer experience by making it more enjoyable — and worthwhile — to participate in the program as shown in Fig. 3. There is something in it for your customers, even if it is simply a delightful game.

Fig. 3.

Theme 2 and subthemes describing the consumer experience in gamified retail

Levels, progress indicators, customizable avatars, and branded games not only improve the user experience of your loyalty program but also may increase its efficacy. They make it enjoyable to interact with your program regularly.

Ethics and challenges in gamification

According to the literature, there is no regulation in gamified marketing of government. Various retailers do some unethical practices using gamification. Some retailers do not disclose their primary goals and intention. There is a lack of transparency in gamified marketing, and the respondents talk about some of the unethical practices they come across using gamification and during online shopping. The participants unanimously agreed that integrating gamification into a commercial setting might raise ethical concerns. If contextual variables such as user culture, conventions, and personality are not taken into account throughout the design process, gamification may cause difficulties such as increased stress and pressure on individuals, compelling them to give up privacy, or creating clusters of users while excluding others. When asked about ethical concerns, they share their personal experiences.

One ethical concern may be that it becomes essential to the gamified application. So, for example, I open an app, download an app, and access a webpage for a problem that I need to fix. Yes. So I might have an end objective in mind, such as finishing my shopping. I need to take charge of a refund. The policy is on the website, and you are making me go through numerous steps to play a game, which is like, you know, I do not find that anywhere. Change the purpose of your customers, you know. From that perspective, I believe it is unethical. (R1).

So there are many issues in gamified marketing, whether it is a lack of transparency, manipulation, hiding purposes and gaining too much personal information as shown in Fig. 4 as well. Gamification design and implementation can be immoral at times. The question of ethics in gamification is constantly a matter of discussion. Some unethical behaviors exist, and.

Fig. 4.

Theme 3 and subthemes describing the ethical issues and challenges in gamification

the negative repercussions of gamification are prevalent. According to a 2013 poll on the use and impression of gamification, consumers are not always aware of the game aspects with which they engage. Because there is no set of standard policies on ethics in gamification and no guidelines defining how to use it, certain unethical acts occur in gamified systems. Consumers also feel that sometimes there is a breach of security because of the no regulation.

“They try to become someone they are not and get that information. One day I got a message asking if I wanted to play this game. After playing those games, you will get certain vouchers, but I found out that it is not Adidas. It does not. It is someone else.” (R7).

Gamification users suffer issues with a lack of transparency, and they are sometimes deceived and exploited. Despite having been employed in various settings for some years, gamification is still in its infancy. The negative impacts of gamification and its harm make the topic of ethics in gamification more debatable. The obstacles and concerns develop due to the design of the gamification framework. A lack of a defined framework exacerbates the negative impacts of gamification. Sometimes, some gamified platforms take so much information about the consumer. A respondent talked about it:

“if the customers see the experiences that they have been through. They do not have authority about the information about them at the company, which can be a negative experience and cause distrust.” (R3).

Given that gamification is one of the fastest disseminating behavioral techniques in business, there has been a less severe examination of the ethical implications of gamification in business than one might assume. We are concerned that this lack of attention is a precursor to what business ethicist Thomas Donaldson refers to as a phenomenon in which a severe moral and social failure occurs as a result of a significant lag time between the development of new technologies and the development of adequate normative frameworks to assess involved ethical issues. These difficulties occur because gamification suppliers may not be moral individuals. To maximize their earnings and traffic, they employ some heinous and wicked methods of attracting customers to their brand. As a result, they should not overlook these types of considerations for gamified marketing. Gamification providers should fully explore gamification frameworks, and they must incorporate morals, ethics, and overcoming hurdles.

Conclusion

This study explores the perspectives and gains insights into the gamification of online retail, focusing on its applicability, potential benefits, and obstacles. The themes that emerged from qualitative analysis are the applicability of gamification in online retail, consumer experiences in gamified retail, and ethics and challenges in gamification as shown in Table 2 also. Semantic analysis is performed, and as per the viewpoint of the gamification experts, it was found that the perception of ethics in gamification is negative, which shows that there are many unethical practices in gamified marketing. This study’s result should help retailers enhance their understanding of customers’ perceptions. The Covid-19 pandemic changed the retail scenario and caused many losses to the retail industry. So in 2020, many big retail brands went into administration. The whole pattern changes due to the closing of stores, social distancing, lockdowns, and work from home concept. However, still, consumers need retail experience. They want surety about the quality of the product. A retailer needs to give the consumers a reason to visit their website and app and convert their visit into a purchase. Gamification digitally engages people and motivates them to a particular behavior. Gamification effectively increases brand loyalty, improves brand recognition, enhances revenues, and attracts new customers. A retailer needs a clear goal and a well-designed and developed gamification app and website. Due to the pandemic, e-commerce activities have increased, and gamification as a digital engagement model enhanced the online retail experience and makes online shopping convenient, fun, and engaging. In order to create such a condition, a game should be designed in such a way that consumers/participants should not be harmed and manipulated. Moreover, a game should be tested in the real world to lead to better outcomes. The findings from the current study provide some valuable insights, thereby providing a rational basis for potentially fruitful future research in this area of growing interest.

Table 2.

Summary of qualitative analysis and emergence of themes

Applicability of gamification in online retail	Gamification	Make the process more interesting and interactive It involves gratification and increases customer engagement	••••••••It makes the shopping experience enjoyable and fun ••••••••Gamification technology is an emerging phenomenon that impacts purchase intention during online shopping
	Gamified marketing	It enhances traditional marketing tools using the playful experience it is good for branding	••••••••Marketers need to improve traditional marketing techniques
	Application	It uses game mechanics to gather customer preferences and details and then generate rewards	••••••••Gamification helps in enhancing brand management by providing intrinsic and extrinsic motivation both
Consumer experiences in gamified retail	Engagement	Creates engagement using financial rewards and enables consumers to achieve something	••••••••Personalization emerged to be an alternative to improve gamification effectiveness
	Motivation	Motivates customers to perform certain activities for leaderboards Motivates consumers to stick to your brand	••••••••Consumers are not always aware of the game aspects with which they engage
	Experience	Personalized the experience to provide a sense of accomplishment	••••••••Users suffer issues with a lack of transparency, and they are sometimes deceived
Ethics and challenges in gamification	Transparency	The information gathered by the company from the consumer should be using a transparent process	••••••••They should not overlook these types of considerations for gamified marketing and they must incorporate morals, ethics, and overcoming hurdles
	Morality	Try to change the purpose of consumer disguise like somebody who they are not and try to get information
	Ethical concerns	There are no government rules and regulations Creates a sense of addiction and trying to get personal information

Source: author compilation on the basis of qualitative interviews.

Appendix

1. Did you like to play games?

2. What is your opinion about Gamification?

3. If you get to play games and get rewards during online shopping, will it increase your purchase intention? (Bauer et al., 2020a)

4. What motivates you to use a gamified shopping app?

5. Does playing game on the online retail platform motivate you to spend more time on the platform? Why or why not? (Przybylski et al., 2010)

6. Do you purchase more if the app is gamified?

7. What do you think are the critical elements of gamification in retail? (Menon et al., 2022)

8. Do you think that gamification help in the personal growth of consumers? (Berger et al., 2014)

9. Did gamification impact your emotions? (Korn et al., 2015)

10. According to you, is the effect of gamification long-term or short-term? (Kim & Castelli, 2021)

11. Did gamified experience help in improving your trust? (Muskan Agarwal et al., 2021)

12. 10) What do you prefer a non-gamified shopping site or a gamified shopping site?

13. 11) Is gamification help in increasing screen time or traffic on the retailer’s website?

14. 12) As a consumer do you think that the gamified experience should be enhanced and changed according to consumers? (Mustafa & Karimi, 2021)

15. 13) What motivates you more the rewards and prizes you get or the fun and satisfaction you feel during shopping? (Fenton et al., 2022)

16. 14) Did Gamification enhance your overall online retailing experience of yours? (Insley & Nunan, 2014)

17. 15) What are the main barriers you came across using a Gamified app?

18. 16) Please discuss any ethical issues in Gamified Marketing? (Thorpe & Roper, 2019)

Declarations

Conflict of interest

The authors declare no competing interests.