Investigating the Impact of Gamification on the Consumer Buying Behavior using Artificial Neural Network

Finding innovative solutions to satisfy consumers has always been a concern of businesses. Accordingly, this study seeks to investigate the effect of gamification on consumer shopping behavior using the artificial neural network, in the tourist offices of the Iranian western city of Kermanshah.

This study is developmental and applicable research. The semi-experimental method (pre-test/post-test) was used with experimental and control groups. The statistical population of this study included the customers of Kermanshah tourist offices with one registered trip in the first quarter of the Iranian calendar year of 1400 (2020-2021). Each of the control and experimental groups consisted of 20 participants. Kim’s consumer behavior standard questionnaire was used to gather the required data. SPSS software was used to analyze descriptive statistics and MATLAB software was used to design an artificial neural network. The artificial neural network was constructed using the radial basis functions. The used data set was divided into 70 percent for training and 30 percent for testing.

The results of descriptive statistics showed that nine participants in both control and experimental groups were women and 11 were men. In the experimental group, eight participants were single and 12 were married. Seven participants in the control group were single and 13 were married. The average ages of the experimental group and control group were 41.8 years and 39.6 years, respectively. The average number of made trips in the year 1400 for the experimental group, and control group were 3.6 and 3.55, respectively. The achieved results also showed that the average scores of all three dimensions of willingness to attend, word of mouth and purchase intention were increased in the experimental group after applying gamification. These values were increased from 6.5 to 13.15, 8.95 to 17.6, and 7.55 to 12.9, respectively. While in the control group, the average scores in all dimensions remained almost constant. The effect of gamification on changing consumer buying behavior was approved by these results. Furthermore, the behavior of a typical person in experimental or control groups (with or without gamification) was predicted using RBF artificial neural network. The obtained results from the designed neural network showed that all of the predictions using the proposed artificial neural network were predicted correctly. Also, the network was able to classify all of the outputs correctly based on the defined inputs. The network had an acceptable error rate.

Based on the obtained results from the artificial neural network, prediction of customer behavior was done correctly. It should be noted that the gamification activities such as completing the puzzle which was tested in this study should be used accurately in businesses. This result will be useful for businesses, marketers, sales managers, market management analysts, and researchers interested in this field.