How One Platform Is Making Online Shopping More Social

If you were to go visit your local shopping mall, it’s likely you’ll find a storefront that’s vacant. While there are a few exceptions in some of the nation’s larger cities, malls have been on the decline for years and a lot of that has to do with the increasing popularity of e-commerce. Between the convenience, vast product selection, and fast shipping times, it’s no surprise that e-commerce has become consumers’ preferred shopping method. 

As a result, gone are the days when shopping was a premier social activity. Instead of groups interacting face-to-face while searching for their favorite items, shoppers are more solitary. This has become pretty standard across the e-commerce space, with many legacy marketplaces focused on enhancing the individual user experience but not the collective user experience. 

Shopping Roulette

To appeal to consumers who still crave the community feel that traditional shopping provides, Italian siblings Joseph and Elia D’Anna and Swedish entrepreneur Emilie Edberg created Shopping Roulette. The social e-commerce platform brings people together by allowing them to compete with other customers for a chance to win products for free. 

To put it simply, the marketplace gamifies the shopping experience by incorporating a round of roulette. Once five customers have purchased a product from the platform, a game is initiated, and a wheel is spun. When a winner is chosen, they receive a refund for their purchased product, which is made possible by consolidating various wholesale profit margins into one massive discount. 

“In an age that consists of social media, live streaming, and iPhones, we are more connected than ever before, but not when it comes to e-commerce. We, mainly, still sit in front of a screen and shop for products alone,” says Joseph D’Anna. “Games are exciting, interactive, and social, which are elements we knew would elevate the shopping experience and attract varying generations of consumers.” 

Gaming Variety

Gamification isn’t an entirely new concept, as we’ve seen this strategy effectively applied in e-sports and crypto. By incorporating in e-commerce, Shopping Roulette is leveraging a digital trend that accelerated during the COVID-19 pandemic. As consumers sat at home playing online games, the desire to integrate this form of modern entertainment into various shopping experiences amplified. 

“Interactivity and connection are built into the DNA of Shopping Roulette,” says Edberg. “We’ve created a platform that links buyers worldwide, features over 500,000 products from over 120 international brands in the fashion apparel sector, and gives shoppers a 20% chance of getting their product for free. Items that consumers would have purchased any way have more appeal because they are mixed with a little bit of low stakes fun.”

As Shopping Roulette continues to grow and pioneer the blend of gaming and e-commerce, it will be interesting to see if other retailers follow suit. The platform’s model can be replicated across various categories and services, which the group plans to take full advantage of in the future. For more information about Shopping Roulette, visit www.shoppingroulette.com