Understanding Gamification Behavior in Indonesian's E-commerce Applications: A Qualitative Study of University Students

Abstract

E-commerce in Indonesia is growing rapidly and has become the largest market capitalization in Southeast Asia and has the highest growth rates in the world. This fast growth has also led to foreign direct investment in Indonesia, which has entered various Indonesian e-commerce sites. Gamification strategies have become extremely popular in the e-commerce industry. Although studies have been conducted on how gamification elements impact e-commerce, there needs to be more focus on how Millennials and Z generations play games. We interviewed 16 Indonesian university students to discover game-playing behaviors on e-commerce applications. Transcribed interviews were evaluated thematically using an inductive coding approach. We cluster the thematic analysis into five different headings-frequency of playing games, played gamification models, reward systems, preference of daily login systems, and preference of mission systems. The finding shows that our participants soon became bored and closed the app, even though they played the fixed-reward gamification model daily. Participants prefer special discount vouchers as a reward system because they can cut the total shopping price. The daily login and task/mission systems are popular with our users because they get rewards quickly and in different ways. This study contributes to evaluate the future gamification model and helps organizations in the e-commerce industry. © 2023 Copyright held by the owner/author(s). Publication rights licensed to ACM.