The popularity of online shopping platforms has contributed greatly to the global market. A 2021 survey saw Amazon as the biggest online shopping platform in the world, with a market capitalization of nearly USD 1.735 billion, due to the platform’s reliable and easy access on a domestic and international level. On the national level, for example in Indonesia, local e-commerce platforms such as Tokopedia and Shopee are also thriving.
In light of COVID-19, social distancing protocols have been implemented by limiting access to public facilities, including malls and other offline marketplaces, driving people to online shopping. In Indonesia alone, it was found that online shopping habits among Indonesians during the second quarter of 2020 had increased around 18% compared to the previous year. While such a habit is continuously becoming a part of the economy to provide consumers with comfort and convenience, the question is how much of it will affect their living environment and end up as clutter?
Problems with online shopping
Prior study has shown that impulsive buying is among the negative aspects of online shopping. Shoppers may feel addicted to the process of shopping and experience constant cravings but tend to neglect the consequences of it. Several factors that may stimulate underlying this behavior are as follows:
Tailored advertisements
Have you ever noticed that every time you browse the internet, there is always a pop-up advertisement showing an item that speaks to your interests even though you are not specifically searching for it at the moment? Does it make you wonder if the internet is reading your mind? Actually, the interconnectedness within the internet enables algorithms to read your preferences across platforms and predict content that you may be interested in.
For instance, if you just finished looking for a new backpack on Amazon then move to check your Instagram account, you may see backpack advertisements showing on the homepage. This is an intuitive way to help consumers in finding exactly what they need. However, the downside is that it could also induce more cravings as you are exposed to diverse options that may leave you wanting to purchase only one model of the same item.
Seasonal sales and promotions
Discounted prices have become the main attraction of online marketplaces. In the case of Indonesia, it is very common for online shopping platforms to offer big discounts and special promotions on certain dates of the month like holiday sales. You can get a branded product for as much as 75% discount for selected items — a temptation for most consumers. The sale usually starts at midnight, but this does not stop people who still make time to toss their luck and race to get the items they desire with the cheapest deal.
This phenomenon continues to shape a mindset of pseudo-scarcity. Even though the products are always in stock, consumers may have a mindset that big sales will not come twice. This motivates consumers to buy more regardless of whether they actually need it or not, which eventually ends up as clutter.
Fear of missing out
A 2020 survey among Indonesian online shoppers found that 70% of respondents saw reviews made by other customers as very beneficial in helping them choose the best products to buy. This complements the perception that online shoppers rely much on product reviews, especially for products on beauty and cosmetics wherein the market is heavily determined by the customer’s experience and opinion on the internet. The role of social media influencers and celebrities in advertising these products also adds to the public’s curiosity.
This leads some to experience a fear of missing out if they do not participate in the trend despite the possibility of some products not being suitable for them. Hence, some purchases made for the sake of keeping up with a certain trend may end up as clutter. These products may overfill your drawers and expire before you even get a chance to use them.
Online ‘retail therapy’
Online shopping provides the comfort of purchasing items with the convenience of being a click away from having items delivered right to your doorstep. In the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, this habit is used as a way to cope with the limitation and emotional charges resulting from the obligation to always stay indoors. People filled up their homes with items they bought online until they realized that it was not an effective way to bring pleasure; as a result, these items turned into clutter that overran their living space, regardless of the size of their home.
Aside from accumulating unnecessary items, boxes used to ship items may also end up as clutter. Think about the time when you receive a big package for one small item. Oftentimes, a product can come in a box that is three times bigger than the item you purchased. Due to this, you might find yourself with a house overflowing with boxes that you do not need and add more stress than you originally had.
Managing clutter from online shopping
Excessive purchases resulting from uncontrolled online shopping habits potentially threaten your home with clutter, especially if you do not take immediate action to make a change of habit. While clutter is often considered trivial, it has some serious side effects that some may not realize, such as reducing one’s wellbeing. Here are several ways to combat the clutter problem as a consequence of online shopping:
Stick to a shopping list and a budget
It sounds cliche, but developing a straightforward shopping list and budget is highly effective to keep you on your toes. Having a list you can regularly monitor will help you to avoid overspending while identifying the items that you can actually afford. There are a lot of mobile apps that can offer such functionality; some are even designed specifically for groceries, clothes, electronics, and so on.
Apart from that, decide how much you are going to allocate for your daily, weekly, and monthly spending and commit to it. Prioritize your expense for daily needs over temporary cravings. You can also set a separate bank account for non-essential purchases to help you stay on budget.
Create an interval between purchases
An alternative to holding yourself accountable for your purchase is making a fixed interval from the current purchase to the next one. By applying shopping intervals, you can also get a sense of what is essential to you and what you simply want. You can adapt a 3, 7, 14, or 30-day interval, depending on your needs. You can also utilize a reminder app on your phone to make sure you will not forget the last time you ordered something online.
Consider the availability of space in your house
It is important to analyze the current state of your living space before deciding to make a new purchase. In order to avoid impulsive buying, ask yourself these questions:
1. Where are you going to place it?
2. Do you have adequate space to store it?
3. Do you already have similar items that you can continue to use instead?
4. What would you do with items you already have if you buy a new one?
You might be interested in certain products, but not necessarily need them. If you cannot pinpoint a clear purpose for buying them, it is better to not go for it.
Implement the ‘One In One Out’ rule
The emphasis on this rule is exchanging an old item for a new one. If there is a desire to acquire a new item, a similar item from the house must be discarded. According to Francine Jay, author of The Joy of Less: A Minimalist Guide to Declutter, Organize, and Simplify, this is when the rule has the most impact. Letting go is extremely beneficial when decluttering to prevent you from bringing in more items that might become clutter in your home.
An example would be that for every new purchase of a t-shirt, an old t-shirt must go. You may also want to pay attention to the ratio between related categories of items such as having more shirts than pants. One good option is discarding an old shirt when buying a new pair of pants. In this way, releasing your belongings will also allow you to discover the items that you genuinely cherish.
Recycle or upcycle shipping boxes
Diverse options could be taken to process unused shipping boxes at home. One simple way is to break down or flatten cardboard boxes and put them in the recycle bin to be processed further. Do not forget to remove your personal details, such as your full name, home address, and phone number on the box to avoid others from using your information for unauthorized purposes.
Another alternative would be to reuse these boxes to store your clutter. For example, you can put clothes and books you want to donate or sell in those boxes. In this way, you also get to save money from buying a new container.
Mindful shopping habits are necessary to be developed as a preventive measure from unnecessarily shopping online and adding clutter. Buying items may give you temporary pleasure, but consider its impact on your living space. By raising awareness for yourself and those around you, you can build precautions to avoid clutter from online shopping in your home.
Technology has made it possible to reach out to people, regardless of geographical distances. People today use their smartphones not only to simply work, shop, and play, but also to manage their personal life. This includes the way people conduct their interactions in building romantic and non-romantic relationships.
When the Pew Research Center polled Americans in 2005 about online dating, only 44% believed it was a good way to meet people, and the majority said it was a poor substitute for forming connections in the “real” world. Since then, the way people interact, meet, and show affection has evolved tremendously.In fact, when Pew Research Center conducted a follow-up surveyten years later, the proportion of people who thought internet dating was a decent method to meet others had increased to 59%.
The approach of online dating is similar to that of other social media platforms, but it also gives users the opportunity to meet others who share their interests, dislikes, and qualities. This makes online dating applications distinctiveas these criteria also increase the likelihood that a user will like the person they meet on a date. Due to this, online dating services saw a rising percentage of people who are forming lasting and meaningful relationships online.
Experiences in online dating
Online dating can be a hit-or-miss proposition. Some people have had great success with online dating, resulting in long-term partnerships. Others have tales of befuddlement and frustration.
According to a poll conducted in 2019 by Pew Research Center, three out of 10 Americans have ever used an online dating site or app, with 11% having done so in the previous year. Some claim these platforms have helped them create meaningful relationships.The study saw that 12% of participants have experienced being married or in a committed relationship with someone they met on a dating site or app.
While most online daters think their experience has been favorableoverall, they do point out some of the disadvantages of online dating. Americans who have used a dating site or app in the last year report feeling more frustrated (45%) than hopeful as a result of their previous encounter (28%). Out of those who are active users, 29% think that online dating has made them feel more hopeful, while 35% say it has made them feel pessimistic. Similarly, 32% believe online dating sites or apps have made them feel more confident, while 25% say they have made them feel uneasy.
Advantages of online dating
As with any other method of dating, meeting someone online has both advantages and disadvantages.Finkel et al. (2012), considers three major services that online dating sites offer to understand how online dating varies from traditional offline dating in essential ways. This also considered the circumstances in which online dating produces better romantic consequences than traditional offline dating:
Access: This refers to the users’ exposure and opportunity to identify potential romantic partners whom they would not otherwise meet. The use of an online dating program is convenient, and the effort of searching matches may be done from any location. It provides users with unprecedented levels of access to potential companions, which is especially beneficial for those who might otherwise lack such access.
Communication: Online dating applications allow users to use computer-mediated communication (CMC). This helps users interact and garner an initial sense of compatibility with specific potential partners through the dating site before meeting face-to-face. People are more susceptible to sincerely answer questions regarding their purpose of dating to find relationships that will fully correspond to their preferences.
Matching: Many websites feature an easy-to-use search engine that lets you find matches based on gender, age, hobbies, and aspirations. In an online dating survey, 72% of women said it was extremely essential that the profiles they looked at included information regarding the type of relationship the other party was seeking, compared to around half of males (53%). Women are also more likely to give more significance in finding partners that fit their criteria on religious beliefs (32% vs. 18%), occupation (27% vs. 8%), or height (27% vs. 8%) than men. Other gender disparities are more subtle, such as the relevance of users’ hobbies and interests, their racial or cultural heritage, or political involvement.
Disadvantages of online dating
While there are definite advantages to online dating, there are also some cautions to take. Users should be vigilant in creating relationships with people online as some may have malicious intent. Some of these disadvantagesinclude the following:
Idealization of the image: An idealistic image of your interlocutor with merits that aren’t inherent in them may appear. If the face-to-face meeting is postponed for a long time, it will be much more difficult to match the created image to a real person later. According to a Pew Research Center survey, women who have used a dating site or app are more likely to find it difficult to find individuals they were physically attracted to (36% vs. 21%) or who liked someone they would like to meet in person (36% vs. 21%). Male users, on the other hand, are more likely than female users to claim that finding people who shared their hobbies and interests was at least somewhat challenging (41% vs. 30%).
Harassment. While online dating apps or sites provide users with greater convenience in communicating and expressing themselves with potential matches, this is also their drawback – in terms of social communication morale. Based on a survey by Pew Research Center in 2019 of 4,860 U.S. adults, about 37% of online dating users say someone continued to contact them on a dating site or app after they said they were not interested. Out of those, 35% reported that someone sent them an unsolicited sexually explicit message or image, and 28% reported that the other party called them an abusive term after being rejected. These percentages are even greater among younger females; six out of 10 female users aged 18 to 34 said that someone contacted them after they stated they weren’t interested, and 57% say another user sent them unsolicited sexually explicit messages or photographs. At the same time, 44% of respondents stated they’ve been called offensive names on a dating site or app.
Short-term gratification: Offline encounters appear to be facilitated by location-based structural characteristics of online dating applications (Miles 2017), allowing for a quick fulfillment of users’ requirements (e.g. users seeking sexual encounters or one-night stands are able to find other users within a walking distance). In fact, according to the I-PACE (interaction of person-affect-cognition-execution) model (Brand et al. 2016), short-term gratification on dating apps can cultivate dysfunctional coping styles to deal with unpleasant emotions (e.g. frustration and anger). This also included dysfunctional affective and cognitive responses in relation to dating apps (e.g. craving, urge for mood regulation, and addiction).
Increased self-objectification:As some people use online dating platforms to fulfill their short-term sexual needs, this objectification of other users has become a concern that may also increase self-objectification (Koval et al. 2019). This has been linked to mental health issues such as clinical symptoms of depression and eating disorders in the past. As a result, more research is needed to look into users’ emotional experiences and how prolonged periods of use may affect wellbeing metrics and clinical mental health symptoms through self-objectification.
When it comes to online dating apps and the separation of dating from the rest of social life, there’s a bit of a causality dilemma. It’s likely that dating apps have built barriers between the search for potential spouses and typical work and community routines. However, it’s also plausible that dating apps are thriving at this point in history because people have stopped looking for potential companions while going about their daily lives at work and in their communities.
What does business as usual mean now? How have last year’s events changed the future of work? How has employee engagement changed? New business models, exponential technology, agile working methods, and regulation are constantly changing how organizations work. Let’s take a closer look at lessons learned through the experiences of employee engagement during the COVID-19 pandemic.
The world was shaken, and despite the negative effects of the recent global health crisis, we can all agree on one thing: We learned a lot in terms of organizational change and growth. After businesses were forced to close their offices and manage all their employees remotely, the learning curve for managers was initially steep. Yet this new way of functioning has brought valuable lessons about how to boost employee engagement that should not be forgotten in the new normal.
Employee engagement refers to the emotional commitment an employee has to their organization and its employees, vision, and goals. It is not only about employee satisfaction, high salaries, or benefits packages. Employees who are engaged in their work and committed to their organizations give companies crucial competitive advantages, such as higher productivity and lower employee turnover.
So, let’s see some lessons and how some companies managed their organizations and increased engagement in a virtual environment.
1. Choose a supportive management approach.
Some companies have been allowing their employees to work from home even before the pandemic hit. They already have rules and ways to manage teams remotely. Other organizations were completely surprised when the lockdowns happened, having no procedures or ways to manage and assess employees in a remote work setup. Some common online methods used were daily or weekly team meetings and frequent 1-1 check-ins.
For many, having frequent check-ins led to a micro-goal setting and allowed employees to receive constant feedback. This coaching approach has led to performance improvement. It also allows management to easily assess and measure progress while also boosting team productivity, which, in turn, keeps employees engaged and gives them a sense of purpose and achievement in reaching goals.
INMAGINE’s remote working environment was quick to adopt best practices in the areas of employee engagement and retention. This creative company founded in 2001 started an anonymous online feedback channel for employees to share anything, assuring them that lines of communication are open. They have also formed peer support groups according to six personality types. It serves as a platform for employees to exchange stories and thoughts not just about their jobs but also their personal lives.
2. Assure a flexible and positive work environment.
For most employees, a change in the environment has become the biggest challenge. It is felt in the transition from being physically present in the office, where one can focus on work, to working at home, where varying contrasts abound, such as being alone or having young children or elderly to care for., All of these could be disruptive to any workflow.
That said, the flexible working environment that most employees experienced during COVID-19 has changed our understanding of work-life balance. Working from home has allowed employees to do their work and attend to personal needs (e.g. taking care of children, elderly, and pets and running errands) simultaneously. This has served as a reminder to managers that several non-work-related factors can affect an employee’s mindset and engagement.
Employees have proven the ability to maintain the balance between work and personal needs, albeit through a forced testing period. In the post-COVID period, management must not forget the importance of constantly creating a positive work environment for their employees. This must include ensuring that work fits into their employees’ lives and not the other way around. When employees feel that their personal needs are valued by management, their emotional connection to the organization is strengthened, and they are more likely to stay.
3. Encourage trust in leadership.
During these challenging times, employees had to trust their leaders to take the right direction and to make tough decisions about the future. A key part of trust in leadership is transparency, which means employees are aware of what is happening within their organization. This is particularly important during a work-from-home scenario, where employees rely on leaders to make crucial decisions for the future of their jobs and the organization. This is why clear, open communication between management and employees on how the organization is tackling COVID-19 is crucial.
At INMAGINE, online meetups with founders and online mentoring sessions with the CEO allowed employees of all levels to engage directly with senior management leaders. In these sessions, employees can freely ask questions and solicit feedback. Having a good collaboration platform is another example of how INMAGINE eases the challenges of working from home. INMAGINE uses Bitrix to keep employees updated on work matters, enable employees to chat live online, and create workgroups for discussions and brainstorming. The tech team advocates extra tools to help manage projects and people, Jira. This ensures that all deadlines are crystal clear to everyone, and the pipeline of each project journey is clearly outlined.
4. Build a virtual office watercooler.
For decades, practitioners have gathered around office watercoolers to catch up with colleagues. Casual conversations run the gambit from professional to personal topics. If you and your team are missing these chats, why not create a virtual watercooler so they can continue even if you are not physically in an office? Establish an “Around the Watercooler” team on the Microsoft Teams platform where team members can start or engage in random conversations throughout the day when they need a break. Add an optional standing “Watercooler Conversation” on Zoom during the week to encourage this type of interaction. If your firm uses Slack, check out the Watercooler app, where bots organize random conversations among team members. Ask your employees what platform is best for them.
5. Make a virtual remix of the firm’s favorite tax season activities.
Bring back the friendly atmosphere from the fun activities you used to have by creating new virtual versions. Incorporate a “crazy hat day” or “wear your favorite sports team attire” in virtual check-ins. Ask individuals to share interesting backstories about what they are wearing, then vote for the best attire. Host monthly lunch celebrations online to recognize your team’s accomplishments. To add to the excitement, have a meal from a restaurant client delivered to the team. How about a bracket selection party for Christmas, New Year Celebration, or other types of celebrations.
6. Reward good efforts.
People want to know that they are appreciated, especially when they work additional hours to help the company achieve its goals. Make it a priority to acknowledge your team members for their hard work. Share success stories during meetings. Pick up the phone, initiate a quick Zoom call, send an email, or write a personal note to say “thank you.” Tell them how much their dedication means to you and the management. Send them a gift card from their favorite restaurant or store, movie tickets, or other types of incentives. Do all you can to make your staff feel appreciated and valued. A little recognition can make the difference between an engaged employee and one that has a foot out the door.
To inspire trust in leadership in the post-COVID-19 period, we recommend having frequent check-ins and transparent conversations between top management, head of departments, and employees to feel included in what is happening within the organization. Moreover, it is also imperative for employees to learn about individual growth opportunities.
Leaders who invest in the learning and development of their employees will be encouraging engagement. Learning can be provided not only through professional education and training but also through constructive feedback, a crucial element in achieving a learning organization status. These practices will boost employee engagement and help organizations to retain their employees for the longer term.
Managing individual and team performance requires up-to-date knowledge and skills. Through The KPI Institute’s Employee Performance Management Professional and Practitioner training courses, leaders will learn how to develop a culture of performance and implement performance systems aligned with the strategic goals of the company. Learn more about the course by sending an email to [email protected] or calling T: +61 3 9028 2223 M: +61 4 2456 8088
Wealth building is the process of producing long-term revenue from a variety of sources. This includes savings, investments, and other income-generating assets in addition to job-based income. The foundation of wealth creation is based on effective financial planning and insight into one’s future financial goals.
Almost everyone wishes to be prosperous at some phase of life. Some individuals prefer to live frugally to save more money, while others take risks by investing in high-return assets to accumulate wealth. Everyone has a different definition of wealth. For some, it is owning property; for others, it consists of making profitable investments.
In terms of finance, wealth is defined as the number of assets you possess without your creditors. Building wealth may tend to be challenging, but it is simple. You don’t have to make six figures to make this a reality. If you are committed, you can accumulate wealth regardless of your age.
Accumulating wealth
Keep in mind that accumulating wealth does not happen overnight. Here are some strategies for expanding your wealth. To accumulate wealth over time, three basic formulas must be taken: make more money than you spend, avoid debt, and invest your savings wisely.
Before investing, you must have a consistent source of income that will last for the rest of your life. It is recommended to establish a solid savings strategy once a steady source of income has been established. Finally, it is time to invest. Step one is to make money, this may appear to be a simple step, but it is the most crucial for individuals who are just commencing out or in transition.
Most of us have seen statistics that indicate how a modest sum saved daily and compounded over time may eventually build up to massive wealth. An essential thing to consider is if your present work can supply you with a consistent quantity of savings for the next 40 to 50 years. If not, it’s time to start looking for alternatives to make more money. Earned income and passive income are the two primary forms of income.
Earned money is derived from your regular work, whereas passive income is derived from investments. To improve your earning income, you may need to first improve your career. Once you’ve established adequate financial stability, you may begin saving and investing.
There are two strategies to increase your income and return on investment. You have the option of reducing your costs or increasing your income. Most people focus on the first and ignore the second. By developing your skillset, you may improve your wealth which may include acquiring a degree, an MBA, or a specific certification all of which can prompt a career advancement and salary increase.
But as we all know, the world’s wealthiest people are not employees but entrepreneurs. Entrepreneurship addresses two main components of creating wealth: income and strong returns on invested capital. In a nutshell, if you have an organizational methodology that might help you gain more profit, get started.
Then you can also take up high-paying jobs. Some of the careers, however, are too unaffordable. They may also need a significant amount of time to finish the required education, and it may take much longer before you begin earning a high income.
Before deciding on a career, you should think about all these issues. Whatever professional route you pick, make sure it does not put you in too much debt. Even if you have a job, you don’t have to rely solely on it. You may improve your income by running a profitable side hustle.
It doesn’t have to be a huge company. You can establish a small business and provide the services that you are proficient at. For example, with the advent of technology, you may now start a completely online firm. If you’re too busy, you can recruit others to operate the business for you.
During your spare time, you may convert your ability or interest into financial worth. If you have an internet connection, you may operate a variety of profitable side hustles online. These include assisting people as a virtual assistant, copywriting, online tutoring, consulting, and so on. Other non-internet-required side hustles include being a part-time lecturer at a nearby community college, freelance bookkeeping, tax preparation, and part-time driver for ridesharing or delivery services.
Setting aside your wealth
Many people live comfortably after achieving financial security, yet they do not save well. The second step to wealth building is to set aside a percentage of your earned money regularly. Once you’ve saved enough money, you may begin investing to generate passive income. There are some ways to save more money; first, creating a budget should be part of your financial plan which includes projections of your expenses versus your income.
A budget is a key instrument in the building of wealth. It provides you with a breakdown of your expenses, highlighting areas where you may cut back to improve your savings. It is best to set a fresh budget every month to keep it manageable. Such a person without allocation of the budget will almost certainly face a terrible financial collapse.
According to GOBankingRates, the fifty, thirty, and twenty rule is a common and efficient budgeting method. According to this strategy, you should spend 50% of your salary on necessities such as food, rent, and healthcare. Non-essentials, such as shopping and luxury pastimes, receive a 30% allocation. The remaining 20% is the most significant allocation, and it should be used for savings.
Building an emergency fund is the most important part because you never really know what’s around the corner. Emergency fund kits prepare you for unforeseen occurrences such as a job loss. Such incidents might throw your wealth-building strategy off track if you don’t have emergency reserves.
Selling investment or developing debts are two frequent consequences. When you accumulate loans, your wealth begins to dwindle. You’ll also have to pay interest on the loan. If you sell your investment, you will lose the money and interest that you would have earned otherwise.
To avoid such circumstances, create an emergency fund as a backup to cover unexpected expenses. Debt whether credit card debt, mortgage debt, student loan debt, or any other type — can obstruct your efforts to create your wealth. You may begin by paying off high-interest debt to save money and begin building wealth.
Living below your means can also help to save more money. Meanwhile, overspending can have a significant influence on your capacity to accumulate money. Reduce your expenditure on needless items such as dining out, buying expensive clothes, and taking frequent trips. While being thrifty might be tedious and unsatisfactory, you will acquire riches and find it gratifying over time.
Securing your wealth
You’re bringing sufficient funds and adequately saving, yet you are putting it all in safe investments, like your bank’s normal savings account. According to FortuneBuilders, if you want to develop a substantial portfolio, you must accept some risk, which means you must invest in securities. So, you should figure out what degree of exposure is best for you.
When you invest your money, it gives you more money in return. Investing your income in the stock market, and in real estate, the gold market, and bank investment can build you massive wealth over time. Purchasing stock in a firm is one of the simplest and most effective methods to generate money. You become a shareholder by purchasing shares, which gives you ownership of a portion of the firm.
Investing in equities using exchange-traded funds is a transparent and risk-free method. Real estate, private notes backed by real estate, and stocks have traditionally been the strongest wealth-building investments. This is because each of these assets can provide consistent cash flow. While other wealth-building assets can give returns for skilled investors, these are regarded to be the best.
Gold may be a valuable financial item to have in a well-balanced portfolio. This kind of investment has some of the strongest turnovers in currency markets and has often grown in value over time. It can also be purchased online or through a mutual fund distributor.
You may also buy these funds through a mutual fund distributor. Investment banking is a branch of banking concerned with the production of money via the selling of stocks and bonds to assist firms in raising cash. Investment banks serve as a link between major corporations and investors, advising firms and governments on how to address financial difficulties and the best method to generate cash, whether through stock offerings, bond issuances, or derivative products.
Building wealth is not a difficult task. If you are diligent and disciplined, you can quickly raise your money. Before embarking on this path, it is critical to empower yourself with financial knowledge. That alone should accelerate you through the other phases with ease and finally lead to wealth creation. When it comes to building wealth, many individuals ignore retirement funds. You will not only save for retirement, but you will also increase your wealth over time.
In today`s economic environment, a business`s ability to monitor and measure performance, in all its dimensions, is essential for fostering organizational growth and profitability. This requirement becomes even more challenging within one of the worldwide highest performing industries in the last few years, namely the mobile game industry.
To measure a game’s success before and after its release, gaming studios need to prioritize several areas for optimization and decide what data is the most relevant for decision making. In other words, a game studio should focus on selecting and using Key Performance Indicators (KPIs)that best reflect how they’re performing with meeting their goals.
What success implies can be different from one mobile game to another; however, three essential categories stand out as areas for optimization:
User acquisition – reflecting on how to improve targeting new users
User retention – focusing on how to keep users engaged the most
App monetization – conveying how to increase revenues to sustain further business development
For each of the above categories, there are some essential KPIs a mobile game studio needs to track.
KPIs to monitor mobile game user acquisition
Determining the amount of new daily and weekly users allows the company to discover the number of game installations every week and observe its progress. These KPIs can help the gaming studio team to discover what engagement strategies are or aren’t working promptly.
# Monthly Active Users (MAU) and # Daily Active Users (DAU) are KPIs that allow a business to follow up on its user base over time.
# Monthly Active Users (MAU) – reflects the number of unique users who engaged with the game in the past month
# Daily Active Users (DAU)– measures the number of unique users that participate in at least one session of a game each day
# K-factor – is another fantastic metric that keeps track of the effectiveness of a business’ customer referral strategy. A game’s K-factor represents the number of invites sent by each application customer multiplied by the conversion of each invite. It becomes a quantifiable metric that can afterward be monitored at specific times in the studio’s game development process.
# Invites sent / DAU – isan offshoot of the K-factor metric, which provides a thorough sample of how well a business’ referral program is retaining players that have downloaded and played the mobile game.
% Users acquired virally (virality metric) – reflects how a gaming development business segment its customers, thusmeasuring the percentage of users generated by referrals from its overall existing users.
Monitoring this KPI can also provide insightful data to support an effective marketing strategy, one that works best for increasing a studio’s chances of its game going viral. After observing the virality metrics, a business will be able to segment the information even further, and the segmenting can be done by source, by geographical location, by the time of day or year, etc.
% Conversion rate – measures the proportion of players who decide to invest money into the game, either by acquiring the full game from the demo or lite app version or simply buying an in-game item in the case of the Free to Play title. The conversion rate for each paid object in the game can be calculated so that the business can find out which ones sell the best.
KPIs to monitor mobile game user retention
What KPIs can help mobile game studios develop a long-term strategy that will encourage players to keep playing their game?
% Retention rate – measures the percentage of users who came back to the game after several days in a row
% Churn rate –As opposed to % Retention rate, the % Churn rate of a mobile game app measures the proportion of users who stopped playing during a specific period.
% Average Session Length per User – monitors the proportion of users who play for a long time in comparison to those who leave the game fast. For instance, the distribution of the session length can show what proportion of game sessions lasts less than 10 minutes and how many last for more than 10 minutes.
# Starts, # Fails, and # Successfully level completions – are three metrics that are useful in determining the learning curve of the game. By understanding how difficult the game is in practice, a business could properly adjust their user engagement and boost their retention.
While # Starts emphasizes how many times a player has started a new level, the number of # Fails measures how many times a player has started a level without being able to complete it. Meanwhile, a KPI such as # Successfully level completions measures how many times a user has successfully completed a game`s level.
Gaming studios may come up with different strategies for monetizing their app, and using KPIs can help determine which model can maximize their revenue and suit their audience’s preferences.
$ CPI (cost per install) – measures the amount of money invested in acquiring a new user from paid advertisements.
$ LTV (lifetime value) – measures the total earnings from a relationship with a user who installed and paid for the game over that customer’s life span.
$ Return on Investment – measures how much profit was generated out of the total cost of an investment, reflecting on the difference between $ LTV (lifetime value) and $ CPI (cost per install). If the value of this metric falls in the negatives, it denotes that the studio is keeping the game alive at a loss.
$ Average Revenue per User (ARPU) – measures the amount of income generated by each active user.
To better understand how the game’s revenue-generating potential is best achieved, two similar KPIs should be monitored, namely: $ Average Revenue per Paying User (ARPPU) and $ ARPDAU (Average Revenue per Daily Active User).
A game studio’s ability to visualize the relationship between acquisition, retention, and monetization KPIs can provide extraordinary insights into a game’s growth and profitability. By combining the acquisition and retention measurement results, powerful trends can be observed and lead to customer satisfaction and customer stability.
By combining retention and monetization, a business will quickly discover what kind of user behavior translates into its most profitable users.
