Your Store Is Boring – And That's Why They Leave

01 /The Concept

Brands pour serious money into Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok ads. People click through to their sites – and immediately leave. Even when the site looks polished and pop-ups start firing personalized offers and discounts. Why?

PlayAbly has an answer: e-commerce sites simply can't replicate the dopamine hit people get from the social feeds they just left. Quizzes and email blasts don't fill that gap either – they're too boring.

PlayAbly proposes that online stores greet their visitors with games. The platform claims this approach triples conversion rates from visitor to buyer.

Even accounting for the platform's cost, PlayAbly says stores can expect an 8x return on their investment.

The platform offers game types organized around three goals: acquiring new visitors, deepening on-site engagement, and bringing buyers back. For acquisition, a quiz-style game lets users feel the brand's strengths; a reaction game demonstrates speed and power. Engagement games let visitors swipe through a product catalog Tinder-style or see products in action before committing. Re-engagement games go into email campaigns, reminding past customers of the brand by letting them experience the value through play.

Stores don't need to write a single line of code. The platform's AI engine handles the entire setup. Results are visible as soon as games start appearing to new visitors, or after a campaign goes out inviting existing customers to play.

PlayAbly has an unusual pricing model: rather than a recurring subscription, it charges a one-time fee for adding games to a store. The cost depends on the game package selected.

The starter package runs $2,500.

The expanded package runs $20,000.

Custom game development is also available – starting at $7,500, with pricing scaling by complexity.

The gamification mechanic works across categories. One PlayAbly client selling children's snacks and sweets boosted average order value by 20% and quadrupled email list sign-ups, generating a 7x return on platform investment. A software company selling tools for teachers tripled email open rates by offering in-email games and grew sales enough to achieve a 5x return.

The founding team went through Y Combinator back in 2019, but went through several pivots since then. The current platform was only recently listed on the YC site.

02 /Why It Matters

A [related review](/review/chtoby-bolshe-prodavat-nuzhno-menshe-prodavat) first surfaced this approach with Cohora, a platform that raised $2.5M in its seed round last fall. Cohora helps e-commerce stores turn one-time buyers into repeat customers.

The standard approach most stores use is relentless promotional emails – every message a variation of "buy, buy, buy"

Cohora's argument is that the most effective loyalty-building tool is pulling customers into non-selling activities: contests, quizzes, games. These activities still reinforce brand and product awareness – but without the hard sell. What started as Cohora's core feature has since become one component of a broader platform.

Stores using Cohora report a 20% increase in average order value and a 10–25% improvement in LTV.

StriveCloud – [covered previously](/review/prostoj-sposob-uderzhanija-polzovatelej-i-pokupatelej) – applies similar mechanics to web services and apps rather than e-commerce. It claims clients saw 150% higher user engagement and tripled the number of active users. StriveCloud raised $1.5M in its first round, also last fall.

TYB – [covered previously](/review/dva-kljuchika-k-rostu-pribyli) – added branded mini-games to a platform that helps brands build buyer communities and grow LTV. Community members bought 40% more frequently, and LTV climbed 28%. TYB has raised $24M in total, including $11M in June.

03 /Opportunities

The conclusion here is simple. To sell online today – and especially to retain buyers – you have to entertain them. People are conditioned to expect entertainment from the internet. Everything else has to adapt to that reality.

Mini-games are the most accessible entry point. But there are more complex approaches that work just as well.

Superlogic – [covered previously](/review/hochesh-imet-lojalnyh-klientov-dari-im-jemocii) – built a loyalty program constructor with an insight at its core: experiences outperform discounts as engagement and retention tools. The platform maintains a catalog of curated experiences – NBA Finals seats, VIP concert access, backstage tours of Broadway productions, seats at private dinners with celebrated chefs – which brands can offer in place of conventional discounts. Companies using Superlogic saw a 9x increase in loyalty program engagement. The startup has raised $21.7M total, including $13.7M this past February.

Unravel – [covered previously](/review/a-prodavat-jeto-nuzhno-ne-tak-kak-vy-dumali) – originally launched a TikTok-style app marketplace for travel, letting users browse and book tours through short video clips. Its most recent $7M raise went toward a different product with the same engine: selling embedded integrations to banks, airlines, and telecom operators so they can offer travel booking inside their own apps. The real insight was that short videos made by professional travel creators actually sell – far better than static listings – because they're more engaging to browse.

Two directions follow. Start by asking how to entertain your own users and buyers instead of only asking them to purchase. Then look horizontally: which sellers, app developers, or platform builders could use entertainment to increase retention, and build the infrastructure to sell to them.

The core question: in your specific vertical, what experience would make customers come back – not for a discount, but because it was fun? Nail that, and the loyalty numbers follow