The Unobserved Heterogeneneous Influence of Gamification and Novelty-Seeking Traits on Consumers’ Repurchase Intention in the Omnichannel Retailing

As information technology continues to provide a platform for any business willing to engage in diverse channels, it has ushered in a continuous evolution of ways to attract and maintain a given customer base. One of the latest trends seen in the retailing industry is the implementation of an omnichannel business strategy. As a result, the number of businesses now implementing such a strategy has led to a lack of differentiation amongst competitors. Therefore, it is no surprise that omnichannel retailers have had to rethink and acquire a new competitive advantage through the exploration of new and innovative strategic activities. Prior work on services has shown gamification to be a successful strategy in enhancing customer loyalty, promoting positive word-of-mouth, and enhancing greater engagement with the offered service. Also, offering hedonic values (one of gamification’s main premises) has been an effective strategy for engaging customers as well as promoting repeat purchase intentions. Despite this, the potential effects of gamification within an omnichannel setting is not yet explored, and thus the rationale of this study. In exploring this gap, we employed means-end chain theory as a basis in which to discover the potential of gamification. Additionally, as gamification is a novel method in omnichannel research, this paper strived to explore the moderating effect of the novelty-seeking traits and unobserved heterogeneous behaviors of consumers. This research was based on 440 valid questionnaires in a survey dataset from Amazon M-Turk. The results provided strong evidence of the underlying proposition within the research models. Specifically, this study showed that gamification could be a potential unique feature used for engaging consumers onto one’s platform, especially consumers with a novelty-seeking trait. We did, however, find that this finding does not apply to the case for all consumers. Therefore, the implication of this research suggests to practitioners that its implementation should be approached through an opt-in rather than a compulsory option.