Play to buy: the gamification of shopping

The killer app is not efficiency, but community

Fast Checkout closed on April 15th 2022. It was a part of the busy one-click checkout market that bets on convenience, efficiency and speed as e-commerce’s killer features.

Maybe not.

Imagine the vibe of going to a mall in its heyday; the experience was rich with serendipity, product discovery, socializing and entertainment. Shopping looked more like a leisure activity than a transactional exchange that’s been optimized to death.

To this day, aspects of shopping that many consumers enjoy the most are the opportunity to showcase their taste, pass their time, share their purchases, influence others and be influenced by them. Community, and the social rewards that come with it, is the most reliable incentive to shop.

Community is also the biggest network effect. Durable vectors of success have more to do with whether a retailer can connect their customers through the shared things they like than if it has the fastest checkout. Those who do will take share from transactional commerce platforms.

There are currently two scenarios: group buying and a shared shopping cart. Both are under the umbrella of interactive commerce, and both rely on three pillars: curation, community, and entertainment.