Digital Transformation of

Convenience Stores

READ MORE

How Gamifying Solutions Are Turning Things Upside Down

Gamified Shopping
North American market

Competition for the convenience store brands in the North American market is getting tougher by the day. Ever since the supply chains have gotten better, product quality is no longer a competitive advantage. Instead, customer experience has taken up a higher priority.

Gamified
Store Navigations

Lately it has been revealed that the way the customers navigate from one aisle to the other influences the sale of certain products. Every convenience store has a section that is hotbed of activity. But it also has a section that is often cold and hardly sees customers stop by.

Gamified Bidding
and bidding competition

Lately, some convenience stores have taken the traditional bidding process and transformed it into a jaw dropping engagement tool. These stores conduct a bidding competition on some of their products every week. Participants can use virtual currency and bid for the products. The players with the highest bid win these products.

READ MORE

introduction

When we discussed about the digital transformation trends that would dominate the retail industry in 2019, we mentioned about gamification solutions.
Gamification solutions have been around for quite some time. Various industry verticals have tried to use them to boost productivity and efficiency. However, they seem to have found their true calling with the retail industry. In fact, convenience store brands have embraced them as a natural extension!
Several convenience store brands have started exploring gamification solutions to increase customer engagement across multiple channels. While some solutions have helped these brands claim a bigger share in their customer’s wallet, the others have helped them manage the footfall of customers in their stores.
Here are a few examples of how gamification is rewriting the rules of customer engagement in convenience stores!

Gamified Shopping

Competition for the convenience store brands in the North American market is getting tougher by the day. Ever since the supply chains have gotten better, product quality is no longer a competitive advantage. Instead, customer experience has taken up a higher priority.

Now, customer experience can be influenced by multiple aspects. This is where gamification solutions are making an impact.

Some brands have got customized gaming apps developed for mobile phones. These games require players to register. On registration they are offered special discount coupons or freebies. As they work their way through the games, they are offered specific items like smoothies or health drinks or even cereals to boost their game performance.

This solution is a good way for the convenience store brands to stay relevant to the millennial generation that is more into mobile gaming and competitive sports. But it also is a good enabler for the store to promote products that are new in the market or have failed to attract good sales through the store’s footfall.

Additionally, these gaming solutions also enable stores to collect important customer preferences data which helps them plan and manage their inventories better.

Gamified Store Navigations

Lately it has been revealed that the way the customers navigate from one aisle to the other influences the sale of certain products. Every convenience store has a section that is hotbed of activity. But it also has a section that is often cold and hardly sees customers stop by. The amount of time spent by products on shelves of these aisles is longer. This is where gamification solutions are bringing about a change!

Some convenience store brands are using mobile gaming apps to lure customers to such sections of the store and get them to spend some time there. They place gaming baits that require them to navigate to that particular section. The more amount of time the players spend in this section, the better rewards they earn.

This way the stores can indirectly encourage customers to look at the products available in these sections and consider them for purchase. This becomes a good soft sell technique that doesn’t get on the nerves of the customers and makes them feel in control of their purchase options.

Gamified Bidding

Lately, some convenience stores have taken the traditional bidding process and transformed it into a jaw dropping engagement tool. These stores conduct a bidding competition on some of their products every week. Participants can use virtual currency and bid for the products. The players with the highest bid win these products.

What these gaming solutions do is that they allow the retail brands to understand the preferences of the customers and their willingness to cough up money. The behavior displayed by the participants becomes a good indicator of which product would generate more sales in the stores and which products would need additional marketing push.

The solution also allows the brand to conduct promotional activity through these games and have them sponsored by the product company!

Gamified Contests & Promotions

Some retail brands have turned to scavenger hunts as their choice of game for increasing customer engagement.

Each week they organize a digital scavenger hunt for their registered app users where they are required to locate and click on images of a certain product on their app or website. The first 50 customers to reach this threshold are awarded the product as a freebie.

This is an interesting way of driving traffic to their website and boosting engagement there. But it also works as a good analytical tool giving insights into customers preferences when it comes to products.

Conclusion

The applications of gamification are diverse and wide ranging. What is really needed is a clear vision, a well thought out strategy, and an able technical team in the backend to support solution development.

At InfoVision we have partnered with major retail brands from the North American market to help them develop and launch gamification solutions that impact their bottom line. As their digital transformation partner, we play an end to end role and ensure that their strategic goals are met by the solution.

To know what kind of gamification solution would work for your brand and your objective, get in touch with us and we would be happy to engage with you.