There’s a misconception that gamification is only about making tasks fun, but a quick ‘spin-the-wheel’ to meet customer loyalty goals only skims the surface.
It can be so much more than this, particularly in an environment where retailers are looking for new and different strategies to capture shoppers’ attention and deepen engagement.
The idea is relatively simple, introducing ‘game-like’ engagement mechanics like challenges, points, rewards and badges into the shopper journey with the goal of steadily migrating the customer up the loyalty value chain, writes Mrinalini Chowdhary, Director, Strategy & Insights EMEA at Epsilon.
This taps into our core motivations, whether that’s the drive for achievement, the need for social interaction, or a fear of missing out. For shoppers, it feels like progress – and fun – moving towards a goal. For retailers, it’s an opportunity to harness these key motivators and design engagement loops to create much deeper customer engagement and loyalty.
We are used to seeing big brands in other sectors using these techniques and integrating them into their loyalty programmes.
In quick-service restaurants, for example, loyalty isn’t just about collecting stamps; it’s gamified through mobile apps that reward every visit with progress bars, challenges, and surprise bonuses. Customers can unlock levels or statuses by completing actions like ordering during off-peak hours or reaching purchase milestones for free menu items, creating immediacy and momentum that keeps them coming back.
While in toys and sports retail, loyalty is treated as an interactive experience, full of missions, badges, leaderboards and collaborative goals. Customers are nudged to complete weekly challenges, join themed campaigns, or hit personal milestones to earn exclusive rewards. These mechanics don’t just encourage transactions; they create engagement loops where members return repeatedly to unlock the next reward, outperform others, or see their impact grow over time.
The power of grocery gamification
Loyalty cards and programmes are already standard practice in retail. But in a challenging retail environment where grocers are pushing for ever-greater margins, is there an opportunity to embrace game-like strategies into everyday transactions?
By moving beyond points-for-purchase to missions, quests, and badge unlocks, brands can drive incremental revenue while progressively profiling members to collect first party data for hyper-personalisation. With advanced gamification, even dynamically personalising the sequence of challenges based on individual behaviour is possible.
We know that gamification can work well in grocery because of the frequency and regularity of shopping trips. What may be seen as a fairly mundane activity – doing the weekly shop in-store or ordering online – could be transformed into something much more engaging, rewarding and fun.
Retailers can build in mission-based mechanics, for example, to encourage frequency and spend using their existing loyalty programmes, encouraging customers to complete specific objectives, either in a single shopping trip or across multiple trips. It also creates a competitive element where shoppers can unlock cash rewards. This way, retailers continue to build anticipation and keep shoppers engaged for longer.
AI-powered gamification
Last year, one of the big four supermarkets launched an AI-powered programme of challenges for loyalty card members to provide personalised, gamified purchase challenges. Customers could choose from up to 20 tailored tasks to earn up to £50 in points within a six-week campaign, designed to increase engagement and reward incremental spending.
By integrating AI into gamification, it can transform the way retailers engage with customers. AI algorithms excel at learning from huge amounts of data from shopper interactions, purchases and more, which allows it to predict customer behaviour. It complements this with personalised customer experiences, recommendations and rewards, enabling gamification systems to tailor challenges and rewards to individual preferences, enhancing the personal relevance of each interaction.
Gamification techniques offer additional earning opportunities for retailers that go beyond loyalty points and prizes. Using featured product incentives, such as offering instant cash rewards when customers purchase selected items, whether retailers’ own label ranges or brands, can help drive product discovery and incremental spend.
From in-app to in-store
Retailers can also take in-store online – and back again – by using in-app gamification. We’re already seeing highly effective in-app gamified techniques used by consumer brands like Nike and Starbucks and this is now transitioning into grocery.
Icelandic grocer Samkaup, for example, has boosted its shopper loyalty and in-store visits by introducing in-app games, like spin-to-win, offering customers the chance to win free products as prizes when that week’s game becomes available. Apparently, the retailer recorded 78,204 game attempts from December 2024 to January 2025, with 3,581 users winning prizes. In January, it added more games to its roster.
What’s more, it’s created a whole new retail media revenue stream for Samkaup, with participating brands choosing which type of game matches their product offerings and then providing free goods as prizes.
For Samkaup and its suppliers, it’s a win-win. Prize winners have to come in-store to pick up their prizes, the result being increased footfall. For brands, it means that whoever wins their product, is more likely to keep buying it afterwards. It also provides suppliers with access to retailers’ first party data allowing them to better understand customer behaviour and personalise future interactions.
We can see some clear examples of where gamification is working in the sector, and this is only set to increase with more AI and machine learning techniques introduced.
It’s not going to be for every shopper, and retailers will realise this as they experiment and try different gamified strategies. Ultimately, it’s about adding greater value for both retailer and customer and an opportunity to increase meaningful engagement – and increase sales.
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