The MiningNewsWire Podcast

With the number of mobile shoppers increasing every day and e-commerce continuing to gobble up more and more of the $22 trillion-plus global retail market, gamification is emerging as a highly effective conversion technology for turning web app visitors into loyal customers through the use of entertaining game design features.

• E-Commerce has high growth rate and considerable room to grow
• Customer conversion tech such as gamification spreading fast due to efficacy
• China and Asia-Pacific have highest e-commerce growth rates

DeepMarkit Inc. (TSX.V: MKT) (OTC: MKTDF) is at the forefront of the trend toward gamification for e-commerce with offerings such as the recently released multiplatform slide-out app Gamify, which helped accelerate month-over-month growth of the company’s merchant base by 61 percent. Shopify, Inc. (NYSE: SHOP) recently released Shopify Ping, a message consolidation app for iOS that unifies messaging from social media, email and other sources with a merchant’s online storefront to create a seamless real-time conversation space. E-Commerce giant Amazon.com, Inc. (NASDAQ: AMZN) reportedly handled 44 percent of all e-commerce sales in the United States last year (4 percent of all retail), according to One Click Retail. In addition, a recent Alpine.AI and InfoScout study shows the company pulling down 8 percent higher sales from owners of the company’s gamified and Alexa skills-enabled Bluetooth speaker, the Echo. Often called the Amazon.com of China, Alibaba Group Holding, Ltd. (NYSE: BABA) has some 552 million active users via Taobao and Tmall, and the company has established a nice relationship with the Chinese middle-class consumer with offerings such as the augmented reality shopping game “Catch the Cat,” which launched last Singles’ Day (November 11) at the 11.11 Global Shopping Festival. Alibaba’s up-and-coming rival JD.com, Inc. (NASDAQ: JD), via partnership with Tencent’s (OTC: TCEHY) multipurpose messaging, social media and mobile payment app WeChat, has also seen major success in this general area with group-buying platform Pinduoduo’s gamified shopping app sweeping the platform. Pinduoduo recently filed for a $1 billion U.S. IPO.