In-Store Gamification: Testing a Location-Based Treasure Hunt App in a Real Retailing Environment

Traditional retailers are facing strong competition from e-commerce. One way to meet this challenge is to follow the marketing movement of focusing on customer experiences. This transformation is based on the notion of engaging customers and one way to drive this engagement is through gamification to support value creation. In this study, we have identified variables affecting intentions to use gamified services and in what ways. For this purpose, we developed an app that generated different levels of gamification by varying the number of game elements. The data from a survey distributed during a field experiment indicates that an increasing level of gamification and technology experience have direct positive associations with intrinsic motivation. Furthermore, intrinsic motivation has a positive direct association with satisfaction, although this is partly mediated by mood. Finally, satisfaction has a positive direct relation with intention to use.