Present and Future of Mobile Commerce

Mobile Commerce is a term to describe any commercial activity on a mobile device, such as a mobile phone (iPhone, Android, Blackberry) or a tablet (iPad, Galaxy Tab, Surface). This includes all steps of the customer journey; reach, attract, choose, convert and retain. Hence mobile commerce is probably best described as shopping that takes advantage of unique properties of mobile devices. It is also called as m-commerce. Pervasive computing aims at availability and invisibility. On the one hand, pervasive computing can be defined as availability of software applications and information anywhere and anytime. On the other hand, pervasive computing also means that computers are hidden in numerous so-called information appliances that we use in our day-to-day lives Characteristics of pervasive computing applications have been identified as interaction transparency, context awareness, and automated capture of experiences.

New Market Segmentation Paradigms and Electronic Commerce Adoption

The purpose of this chapter is to offer a better understanding of online shoppers' behaviour, so that virtual shops may improve and adapt their product offering to effectively reach their target segments. In order to achieve this goal, a characterization of motivations to shop online is proposed as a basis for motivation-based customer segmentation. Building upon this segmentation, acceptance models—namely, an adaptation of UTAUT2 to e-commerce—have been used to look further into the purchasing behavior of each identified segment. The results from the empirical study based on responses to an online questionnaire from a sample of 718 Spanish shoppers shows seven different groups of motivations and five different customer segments, and confirms different behavioral patterns in the adoption of e-commerce for different segments of customers, with special influence of effort expectancy, facilitating conditions, and perceived risk in the online shopping behaviour of individuals.

The Role of B2B E-Commerce in Market Share

This chapter explores the impact of the Internet and Business to Business (B2B) e-commerce on Spanish manufacturing firms' market share while most studies focus on innovation and productivity. Using standard panel estimations, the authors find that firms with their own Web domain and that also carry out B2B e-commerce increase their market share, though this effect is not homogeneous among industries. B2B e-purchases have a more significant (and positive effect) on firms' market share than B2B e-sales have. Unlike other studies, the authors also use a panel threshold regression specification that shows that e-commerce affects market share in a non-linear manner depending on firm's characteristics. Larger firms and firms with higher share of skilled workers are better at increasing their market shares through Internet-based commerce strategies than other firms.

The Impact of Inertia as Mediator and Antecedent on Consumer Loyalty and Continuance Intention

This study builds on existing loyalty literature and theories, and extends to include consumer attitudes impact on continuous intention and loyalty based on relationship marketing and information systems. Three structural equation models built from a survey of 458 mobile Thai consumers revealed that inertia was the strongest factor among all constructs in predicting consumer loyalty and continuance intention, either as mediator or antecedent. Support was found for all of the hypothesized relationships for consumers using mobile wallet apps, except for the path between loyalty and continuance intention. Though the direct effects of consumer attitudes were more or less constant, satisfaction became insignificant when inertia acted as a mediator. As an antecedent to both consumer attitudes and satisfaction, inertia significantly increased the explanatory power of continuance intention and loyalty. This study provides new insights into factors that influence loyalty and continuance intention in the context of mobile wallet applications.

Online Shopping in the United Arab Emirates

The aim of this paper is to empirically explore the perception of a group of United Arab Emirates (UAE) web users towards e-commerce transactions, study their willingness to trade online, and isolate factors that drive these users towards purchase decisions. The study finds that web users largely use functional characteristics to assess the effectiveness of e-commerce websites, and are driven towards online purchase decisions by factors such as greater security, better value, and convenience. Overall, web experience was defined by the users in terms of three main dimensions; website features, credibility and trust, and transaction value. Practitioners can use these findings to improve their websites and online offers to better serve this market. The paper fills an identified gap in the literature by investigating the perceptions of the UAE web users, and makes a contribution towards studying the concept of online shopping in this region.

Applications of Intelligent Agents in Mobile Commerce

Mobile phone usage and its adoption have been growing at exponential rates. It is this exponential growth rate that has led many to predict Mobile Commerce (M-Commerce) as the next major evolution of Electronic Commerce (E-Commerce). While M-Commerce comes rich with unique features, it is currently lacking in usage when compared to traditional e-commerce. There are many challenges that must be addressed in this respect. These challenges are mostly inherent in the mobile devices, communication network, legal and regulatory infrastructure. The use of agents in e-commerce has long been explored in the context, resulting in a number of agent based e-commerce systems. It is not surprising then to note that many researchers believe that the problems that the M-Commerce now faces can be addressed well using agent technology. While there is an abundance of information on the use of agent based systems in other areas, there has been no great surge yet in the use of agent based systems in real world M-Commerce applications. We believe that this slow adoption of this agent technology is due to a lack of standards. There has been a quite an amount of research work carried out in the use of software intelligent agents in the M-Commerce applications like Shopping, Hotel, and Airline industries. These are outlined in the paper with appropriate screenshots and descriptions.

Mobile Commerce Security and Its Prevention

Mobile commerce is the next generation of e-commerce, where payments and financial transactions can be carried out with utmost ease using handheld mobile devices. Mobile devices are at a higher security risk due to the large amount of critical financial and personal data available on it. The cause or consequence of these threats could be - malware and spyware attacks; multiple or incorrect m-Commerce payments; breaches due to unauthorized access or disclosure, unauthenticated transactions and risk due to the use of third party networks. This chapter discusses how to manage security risks in m-commerce by first identifying them and then discussing preventive measures for their mitigation. A continuous approach for risk prevention needs to be followed, reviewing the strategy according to the latest challenges. Various risk prevention and mitigation strategies can be adopted. Service providers must follow physical and digital security measures to protect consumer's business information. Independent auditing should ensure compliance with best practice security standards.

Risk Management, Trust and Repeat Online Shopping Intentions

E-commerce is a growing phenomenon in Africa. One area of e-commerce that is growing at a very fast rate is online retailing. This is despite concerns that individuals often have in relation to online shopping being associated with more risk than traditional retailing. This chapter looks at practices of online retailers that help in mitigating online shopping risk and the influence of these on customers' levels of trust as well as on their intentions to re-purchase from specific online stores. The findings show that provision of adequate online product information and online store security has positive influence on customers' level of trust in an online store. The findings also show that trust in an online store has significant influence on customers' intentions to repurchase from a store. The findings have wide implications on successful management of online store outlets and these have been highlighted in the chapter.

Drivers of Mobile Application Acceptance by Consumers

During the last decades the economy has undergone a huge transformation in terms of telecommunication industry evolution. The use of mobile applications has been generally accepted in society but still little is known about how customers use these applications and how managers can obtain high levels of return on their investments in this domain. The Technology Acceptance Model (TAM) has been used for several years to predict the attitudes and behaviours of consumers of mobile services. However, several authors have recognized the limited applicability when it comes to explaining mobile service acceptance by customers. This paper uses a meta-analytic approach to review the acceptance of mobile services and analyse the relationships between TAM variables and consumer acceptance of mobile services. The authors searched all available academic computer databases to get a deeper understanding of this topic and uncover the most significant drivers of mobile application acceptance by consumers.

China's E-Tailing Blossom

E-tailing has a dynamic ecosystem different from traditional retailing. To the best of our knowledge, there are few case studies scientifically grounded yet practical. Nonetheless, this is the authors' goal with this book chapter. A case study of China's e-tailing is needed because China is the largest emerging market as well as the largest e-retailing market in the world. Moreover, e-tailing provides one of the most effective ways for foreign retailers to enter China's impressive retail market. This case study will explore the underlying reasons for the success of China's e-tailing market by investigating the elements of China's e-tailing ecosystem. This study will further investigate the major players in China's e-tailing market, with a focus on the Alibaba Group, China's largest e-tailing company. This study will address Alibaba's e-tailing strategies and practices by comparing Alibaba and its major domestic and global competitors (e.g., Amazon).