In pursuit of evidence: a design and empirical study of a gamified online marketplace

Abstract

Gamification seems a promising method to engage people and stimulate their activity, both offline and online, but has a dearth of empirical evidence in scientific literature. This study investigated whether gamification can have a positive effect on the amount of user-generated content on online marketplaces. Two similar gamification treatments were designed for the mobile website of OLX India, a marketplace for used goods. The treatments were quantitatively evaluated in a double-blind controlled experiment on 51,103 OLX users, who were randomly selected and evenly assigned to a control group and two treatment groups. The users who actively engaged with either of the treatments created more than 6 times as much content as users who did not engage with the treatments, resulting in an overall content increase of over 18% for the treatment groups compared to the control group. Gamification on online marketplaces is effective for users who actively interact with a treatment, not for all users per se.