Analysis on Gamificaiton Features Usage on Indonesia e-Commerce Sites using Octalysis Framework

Abstract

E-Commerce is a process of selling, buying or bartering product, service or information using computer as the medium of transaction. B2C e-Commerce is an e- Commerce where the product or service transaction used in retail from business to consumer [13]. Indonesian B2C e- Commerce sites have emerging and this means that competition between them may also be intense. One of the methods to gain customer’s attention is to implement gamification features in their sites. Gamification is the application of typical elements of game playing to other areas of activity, typically as an online marketing technique to encourage engagement with a product or service [6]. In this paper, we chose five Indonesian B2C e-Commerce sites based on information gathered and assimilated from an article in TechInAsia [1] and Alexa.com for the access frequency data. These five sites include lazada.co.id, bhinneka.com, zalora.co.id, blibli.com and jakartanotebook.com. We used Octalysis Framework developed by Yu-Kai Chou [3] to analyze those sites. The framework has eight core drives that illustrated motivations that a user feels when playing the game (or in this case shopping). The result of this research showed that 60% of the data samples have implemented those core drives and the 40% have only implemented 75% of those core drives. This concludes that the data sample have embedded gamification features in their sites.

Full text

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Analysis(on(Gamification(Features(Usage(on(Indonesia(e7
Commerce(Sites(using(Octalysis(Framework(
Satrio Baskoro Yudhoatmojo
Faculty of Computer Science,
Universitas Indonesia
Depok, Jawa Barat, Indonesia
satrio.baskoro@cs.ui.ac.id
Riandra Ramadana
Faculty of Computer Science,
Universitas Indonesia
Depok, Jawa Barat, Indonesia
riandrar13@gmail.com
ABSTRACT(
E-Commerce is a process of selling, buying or bartering
product, service or information using computer as the
medium of transaction. B2C e-Commerce is an e-
Commerce where the product or service transaction used in
retail from business to consumer [13]. Indonesian B2C e-
Commerce sites have emerging and this means that
competition between them may also be intense. One of the
methods to gain customer’s attention is to implement
gamification features in their sites. Gamification is the
application of typical elements of game playing to other
areas of activity, typically as an online marketing technique
to encourage engagement with a product or service [6]. In
this paper, we chose five Indonesian B2C e-Commerce sites
based on information gathered and assimilated from an
article in TechInAsia [1] and Alexa.com for the access
frequency data. These five sites include lazada.co.id,
bhinneka.com, zalora.co.id, blibli.com and
jakartanotebook.com. We used Octalysis Framework
developed by Yu-Kai Chou [3] to analyze those sites. The
framework has eight core drives that illustrated motivations
that a user feels when playing the game (or in this case
shopping). The result of this research showed that 60% of
the data samples have implemented those core drives and
the 40% have only implemented 75% of those core drives.
This concludes that the data sample have embedded
gamification features in their sites.
Author(Keywords(
Gamification, e-Commerce, Octalysis Framework
INTRODUCTION(
Electronic transactions have gained attention in Indonesia
due to the emergence of e-Commerce sites, such as Lazada,
Blibli, Tokopedia, Bukalapak, etc. According to a research
by the Ministry of Communication and Information
Technology of Republic of Indonesia in 2014 about e-
Commerce transaction, the amount of transactions was still
relative low (around 150 trillion Indonesian Rupiah / 12
million US Dollar) [10]. The government is targeting to
achieve 20 million US Dollar of e-Commerce transactions
by 2016 [10]. According to the prediction by eMarketer in
2014 [7], sales growth of B2C (Business to Consumer) e-
Commerce will experience an increment on each year. This
would cause a tighter competition amongst e-Commerce
sites to gain loyal customers.
Nowadays, e-Commerce sites have used several methods to
gain customer’s attention. Some of those methods are
product marketing using social media, offering a
subscription program, and free shipping / delivery service.
Another method is the implementation of gamification
features in e-Commerce sites. Sites such as Nike, Samsung,
Ebay and Amazon have taken advantages of gamification
feature in their sites [9] [12]. The latter is focus of our
paper. We would like to investigate the existence (and the
use) of gamification feature in Indonesia e-Commerce sites.
Furthermore, we would like to investigate the gamification
features used in Indonesian e-Commerce sites. The
organization of this paper is as follows. The first section
introduces the background problem. The second section
describes the theoretical background of this research. The
third section describes the methodology of this research.
The fourth section describes the result and analysis. Lastly,
the fifth section describes the conclusion and future works
of this research.
THEORITICAL(BACKGROUND(
The following sub-sections are describing concepts and
theoretical background that we used in the research.
E7Commerce(
According to [13], e-Commerce is a process of selling,
buying or bartering product, service or information using
computer as the medium of transaction. E-Commerce can
be classified into 11 classifications [13]: (1) business-to-
business (B2B), (2) business-to-consumer (B2C), (3) e-
tailing; (4) business-to-business-to-consumer (B2B2C), (5)
consumer-to-business (C2B); (6) intrabusiness EC; (7)
business-to-employees (B2E); (8) consumer-to-consumer
(C2C); (9) collaborative commerce (c-commerce); (10) e-
learning; and (11) e-government. This research focused on
B2C.
B2C is an e-Commerce where the product or service
transaction used in retail from business to individual
consumer [13]. Some examples of B2C e-Commerce are
Amazon (amazon.com), Walmart (walmart.com), Lazada

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(lazada.co.id), and Bhinneka (bhinneka.com). In our
research, the data sample is B2C e-Commerce.
Gamification(
The term was introduced in 2003 by a game developer from
Great Britain named Nick Pelling [14] but it is adapted and
used broadly in 2010 [4]. According to Oxford Dictionary,
gamification is “The application of typical elements of
game playing (e.g., point scoring, competition with others,
rules of play) to other areas of activity, typically as an
online marketing technique to encourage engagement with
a product or service” [6]. There is also other definition
about gamification. For instance, [3] defines it as “Craft of
deriving fun and engaging elements found typically in
games and thoughtful applying them to real-world or
productive activities”.
According to the definition, the goal of gamification is to
make the user happy, motivated or attached to the product
or service used by the user by using elements commonly
found in games. This is in line with the statement from [5],
which stated that gamification emerged from researches
about the feeling of fun, user experience, and motivation in
using a product or service. The elements of gamification do
not have to be in the form of games, such as levels, avatar
or other form commonly found in games. They can be in
the form of progress bar, such as in LinkedIn [13], as long
as the element is able to draw and make the user to feel
attached to the product or service.
Gamification(Framework(
Gamification framework emerged as guidance for
researchers or developers to use gamification in their
domain [2]. The framework should also be able to be use
for evaluating an implemented gamification in a product or
service [2]. The result of our literature study about
gamification framework has come to a discovery of two
gamification frameworks: (1) Gamification Design
Framework [14] and (2) Octalysis Framework [3]. The
following sections will discuss these two frameworks.
Gamification*Design*Framework*
Kevin Wabash has developed a framework that has six
steps in designing gasification [14]. The following are the
six steps:
•!Step 1: Define Business Objective
Describe the objective of the product or service that
the gamification to be implemented.
•!Step 2: Delineate Target Behaviors
Profiling the user’s behavior and measurement of the
expected achieved behavior.
•!Step 3: Describe Player
Describe players (users) using Bartle Players Type.
•!Step 4: Device Activity Loops
Describe a cycle of activities that can motivate,
engage user and keep user interested.
•!Step 5: Don’t Forget the Fun
Embed fun elements in the design.
•!Step 6: Deploy Appropriate Tools
Implement the right game element.
The Gamification Design Framework has a focus on the
process of implementing gamification elements or features.
The framework is not used to analyze features in an
application for gamification features. We turn into the next
framework for analyzing gamification features in an
application.
Octalysis*Framework*
A tool developed by Yu-Kai Chou, an expert in
gamification, which was published in 2012 [3]. Octalysis is
composed of eight core drives. Each core drives illustrated
motivations that a user feels when playing the game. Each
core drives is described in Table 2. The following are the
core drives [3]:
•!Epic Meaning & Calling
Motivations felt by a person when that person felt
important or part of something meaningful.
•!Development & Accomplishment
Motivations felt by a person when that person felt an
improvement, learned and earned new skills and
finished a challenge.
•!Empowerment of Creativity & Feedback
Motivations felt by a person when that person felt
engaged to a creative process where that person can
express his/her creativity in trying new experience.
•!Ownership & Possession
Motivations felt by a person when that person felt in
control or that person felt being an owner.
•!Social Influences & Relatedness
Motivations felt by a person which caused by social
elements interacted with that person.
•!Scarcity & Impatience
Motivations felt by a person when that person
wanted something because it is rare, exclusive or
only available on limited time.
•!Unpredictability & Curiosity
Motivations felt by a person when that person felt
engage to something that he/she does not know what
would happen next.
•!Loss & Avoidance

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Motivations felt by a person when that person
wanted to avoid or prevent a negative incident.
METHODOLOGY(
We survey the five e-Commerce sites based on two criteria:
(1) the sites must be a B2C e-Commerce sites, and (2) the
sites must have origin from Indonesia or have a child
company in Indonesia. Furthermore, we also constrained
the sites by their access frequency. We used the help from
Alexa.com to obtain the list of Indonesian e-Commerce
sites. The five e-Commerce sites we chose based on the
two criteria mentioned above are lazada.co.id,
bhinneka.com, zalora.co.id, blibli.com and
jakartanotebook.com. We chose the sites randomly but
with those criteria in mind.
Once we have chosen our data sample, we observed and
analyzed the features these sites. The Octalysis Framework
will analyze the gamification usage on these sites. Lastly,
we summarize our findings.
RESULT(AND(ANALYSIS(
Sample(Identification(
In this research, we focus on B2C e-Commerce sites that
should be in Indonesia or from overseas companies that
have child companies in Indonesia. TechInAsia wrote an
article about 28 popular shopping sites in Indonesia [1]. In
[1], there is a special section focuses on B2C e-Commerce
sites. We use the data from [1] as a foundation.
Furthermore, we use the help from Alexa.com to get
information about the access frequency of e-Commerce
sites in Indonesia [11]. We interested with sites that have
high access frequency (user access to the sites are high).
We identify the list of B2C e-Commerce from [1, 11]. We
randomly chose five B2C e-Commerce sites and the result
are lazada.co.id, bhinneka.com, zalora.co.id, blibli.com and
jakartanotebook.com. These sites are the samples we used
in this research.
Sample(Analysis(
First, we observed and analyzed the features of each site.
The result of our observation and analysis on the features
has become an Octalysis Framework’s core drive. The
manually categorization process is done by understanding
the behavior and functionality of the features through
observation and matches them to the definition of each core
drive. The result of the observed and analyzed features of
each site and their categorization to the core drives
presented in Table 3.
Table 3 shows 6 out 8 core drives in Octalysis Framework
have their implementation in the form of features in the five
sites we used as our data sample. The only two core drives
that were not available in all five sites are “Epic Meaning &
Calling” and “Development & Accomplishment”.
The “Empowerment of Creativity & Feedback” core drive
shows that all five sites engaged customers in a creative
process where customers can express his/her creativity in
trying a new experience. In the case of all five sites, they
have a review features in which customers can express their
attitude toward the product they bought or browsed.
The “Ownership & Possession” core drive shows that all
five sites create environment in which customers felt in
control or owning something. In the case of all five sites,
they gave customers coupons or points so that they felt
owning something in those sites.
The “Social Influences & Relatedness” core drive shows
that all five sites have a medium for social interactions
between users of those sites. In the case of all five sites,
they have blogs, review features or forums in which users
can interact with others who have something in the sites
and/or influence others by users’ opinion about something
in the sites.
The “Scarcity & Impatience” core drive shows that all five
sites have features that causing the customers to want
something because they rare or only available on limited
time. In the case of all five sites, they offered discount on
some products in their sites on limited time.
The “Unpredictability & Curiosity” core drive shows that
all five sites manage to engage customers into something
unpredictable. In the case of all five sites, they may offer
discount to different items at different time, search features
that may give results to the search items and other
unexpected items. Similar to search features, some sites
have product recommendation that may recommend
unexpected product to customer.
The “Loss & Avoidance” core drive shows that all five sites
motivate to avoid or prevent negative incident. In the case
of all five sites, they offer discounts on items so that a
customer does not buy items on regular prices.
The two core drives, “Epic Meaning & Calling” and
“Development & Accomplishment”, which only available
on three sites have the following meaning. “Epic Meaning
& Calling” core drive shows that the sites have
environments that enable customers to be part of something
important within the sites. In the case of these sites, they
gave the first registered customer a coupon that gives
customers a perspective that they are VIP user of those
sites. “Development & Accomplishment” core drive shows
that the sites gave customers experience in which they
learned something new or accomplish something by using
features in the sites. In the case of these sites, once the
customer has achieved a certain experience or points then
he would activate features.

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Overall, 60% (3 out of 5 sites) of the data sample have
implemented all the core drives and the 40% of the data
sample has not. Within this 40%, the sites have implement
75% of the core drives (6 out of 8 core drives). We
concluded that these five sites have implemented
gamification features based on Octaclysis Framework’s
core drives as mentioned in Table 3.
CONCLUSION(
Our research worked on five samples Indonesian B2C e-
Commerce sites that have high access frequencies. We
observed and analyzed features of each sites and mapped
them into matching core drives of Octalysis Framework.
The aimed is to identify whether those five sites have
implemented gamification features or not. The result shows
that they have implemented gamification features based on
the mapping result of the features into core drives of
Octalysis Framework in Table 3. This research also
confirmed the use of Octalysis Framework for analyzing
gamification features in an application.
Future(Works(
Our work is still in early stages of research. There are
many improvements in order to have a better understanding
about the use of gamification in e-Commerce applications.
Some of these improvements are as follows. Firstly,
understanding the impact of having these gamification
features to customer satisfaction, especially in the context
of Indonesian market. Secondly, exploration of
gamification features that are relevant to Indonesian
customers. Thirdly, the effectiveness of gamification
features used in the applications, and fourthly, adding more
data sample in order to generalized the result to represents
Indonesia e-Commerce applications.
e-Commerce
Sites
lazada.co.id
bhinneka.com
zalora.co.id
blibli.com
jakartanotebook.com
Core Drives
Epic Meaning &
Calling
-
first-time
registered
coupon
first-time
registered
coupon
first-time registered coupon
-
Development &
Accomplishment
-
bhinneka
point, write &
win
reward program
blibli point reward,
membership, my review
-
Empowerment of
Creativity &
Feedback
review
listpedia,
suggestion
box, review
review
my review
watch-list, review
Ownership &
Possession
coupon
eCoupon,
bhinneka
point
voucher,
customer’s
credit balance
coupon, blibli point reward,
membership level
deposit
Social Influences
& Relatedness
lazada blog,
review
listpedia,
bhinneka
forum, review
review,
magazine
blibli friends blog, review
review
Scarcity &
Impatience
product
discount
product
discount
product discount
product discount
product discount
Unpredictability
& Curiosity
product
discount,
popular
search/customer
who also
bought the
item/deal of the
day/highlight
lazada/other
items the other
customer
bought
product
discount,
maximum
low price,
find your
perfect PC
product
discount,
product
recommendation
coupon, product discount,
popular
product/recommendation/the
most sold product/the
newest product/similar
product/product highlight
product discount, the most
popular
product/recommendation/the
most sold product/the
newest
product/promotion/similar
product
Loss &
Avoidance
limited offer
coupon, limited
discount
limited e-
Coupon,
limited
discount
limited offer
coupon, limited
discount
limited coupon, limited
discount
limited discount
Table 3: Features Categorization To Octalysis Framework’s Core Drives

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