Adoption of M-Commerce Devices by Consumers

The Internet has undoubtedly introduced a significant wave of changes. The increased electronic transmission capacity and technology further paves a superhighway towards unrestricted communication networks (Chircu & Kauffman, 2000; Cowles, Kiecker, & Little, 2002). It is estimated that by 2007, the total number of Internet users in the world will be over 1.4 billion and the percentage of wireless users is projected to take up about 57% of the vast number (Magura, 2003). Most people anticipate that the next-generation commerce will emerge from traditional commerce to PC-based e-commerce, and eventually to mobile commerce (Ellis-Chadwick, McHardy, & Wiesnhofer, 2000, Miller, 2002, Watson, Pitt, Berthon, & Zinkhan, 2002).Mobile commerce (m-commerce) is an extension, rather than a complete replacement, of PC-based electronic commerce. It allows users to interact with other users or businesses in a wireless mode, anytime and anywhere (Balasubramanian, Peterson, & Jarvenpaa, 2002; Samuelsson & Dholakia, 2003). It is very likely that PC-based e-commerce will still prevail for a relatively long period of time in spite of the trend that more and more people will choose to adopt m-commerce for their purchases (Miller, 2002).The focus of our article is on the consumers’ adoption of m-commerce devices (MCDs), which are equipment and technologies that facilitate users to make use of m-commerce. MCDs include mobile phones, personal digital assistants (PDA), portable computer notebooks, Bluetooth, WAP, and other facilities that can have access to the wireless networks. We expect that the heading towards a world of mobile networks and wireless devices, which will present a new perspective of time and space, is definitely on its way. Several basic questions about m-commerce devices will be addressed in this article. First, why should consumers adopt MCDs? What will be the influencing factors for consideration? Are these MCDs easy to use and proven to be useful? Second, how do the MCDs compare with the devices for other types of commerce, such as e-commerce or traditional mail order? Consumers will only adopt MCDs when there are some potential significant advantages when comparing to old devices for other types of commerce. There is still a lack of comprehensive framework within which the adoption of MCDs can be evaluated. Traditional viewpoints regarding this issue, especially those that are based on technology acceptance models, will need to be revisited and revised when consumers are considering such an adoption. In this article, we propose a framework for identifying the various influencing factors of the adoption of MCD, as well as the antecedents of these influencing factors. Because of the need of the standardization of the application, interface, and inter-connectivity of all hardware and software relevant to the adoption and usage of MCDs, our proposed framework will have some global implications (Zwass, 1996). Our conceptual framework can, therefore, make significant contributions to a more in-depth understanding in the spread and acceptability of m-commerce through knowing why and how relevant MCDs are adopted. While using technology acceptance models (TAMs) as our primary reference, we also incorporate the important implications of an options model into our basic framework of analyzing consumers’ adoption of MCDs. Based on our theoretical framework, we identify four influencing factors - merits, maturity, maneuverability, and mentality - which we consider to be relevant to the decision of consumers in adopting MCDs. We also identify two generic antecedents of these influencing factors - mobility and matching. We plan to investigate the extent of influence of these influencing factors and their antecedents, which will affect consumers’ adoption decisions of MCDs. Figure 1 is a graphical representation of our conceptual model of the adoption of MCDs by consumers.