Improving an App for Visually Impaired Travelers

Some public transportation companies have begun to develop mobile applications that facilitate the accessibility to their services for people with visual impairments. Nevertheless, despite their importance, up until now, very few studies have analyzed the particular characteristics and needs of this segment of the population in order to adapt the design of and services provided by this type of application. The objective of this study is to understand how users interact with this technology. This research is based on an analysis of the application developed by the Malagueña Transportation Company (EMT). Given its exploratory nature, a qualitative methodology was used based on focus groups with the participation of experts and users. The results allow the authors to learn about users' opinions, perceptions, and attitudes towards these applications, and to help guide strategies to improve their design and performance.

Mobile Fashion C2C Apps

Consumers increasingly prefer to use mobile phones to surf the internet and make purchases. Mobile applications are also being more used in the area of trade between consumers. This study seeks to understand how satisfaction is generated in the context of consumer-to-consumer (C2C) commerce via mobile applications for buying and selling second-hand fashion products (e.g., clothing, accessories). The research model was empirically evaluated using data collected by an online survey and analysed through partial least square structural equation modelling (PLS-SEM). The results show that trust, perceived usefulness and mobility have significant and positive impacts on consumer satisfaction with C2C mobile applications in fashion sales. Conversely, factors such as security, privacy and enjoyment do not have significant influence.

Profiling Mobile Service Customers in the Spanish Market

This research aims to examine whether different user groups exist in the mobile services industry and to profile and characterize them in order to provide management recommendations for mobile service companies. To examine the users' behavior in the mobile services sector, customer segmentation by means of factor analysis and k-means cluster analysis is developed with data from 443 mobile service users. Further, a Manova test is conducted to confirm differences among the obtained user segments. Mobile service customers cannot be seen as a homogenous group, since different customer profiles coexist in the mobile service industry. More specifically, four user clusters emerge from the research findings, namely “pragmatic uninvolved,” “satisfied savers,” “prone-to-switch” users, and “service mavens,” the “service mavens” being the most attractive segment for mobile service companies. A behavioral-based segmentation is developed to extend the understanding of customer behavior in the mobile services field.

Assessing the Antecedents of User Intention to Use Mobile Payment Services in the Context of Emerging Markets

There is a growing interest in mobile payment services and its study is gaining popularity around the world. After reviewing literature related to mobile payment services, the current study proposes a conceptual model aiming to identify the main antecedents of user behavioral intention to use mobile payment services in an emerging market such as India. The authors collected data in the Delhi/NCR (national capital region) by means of an online survey technique. A structural equation modeling approach was used to test the proposed hypotheses. The results explain the importance of perceived usefulness, perceived attitude, and personal innovation of users in the use of mobile payment services. Perceived risk is found also relevant and negatively influences user intention to use. The findings of the study provide a background to preceding studies and encourage online businesses to combine this technology-based payment service.

Problems Faced by Consumers in E-Commerce Transactions With Special Emphasis on Digital Economy in India and the European Union

The chapter critically analyzes the defies consumer faces in e-commerce transaction like jurisdictional issues, privacy, and other issues. It also focuses on the EU directives and position of India with reference to e-commerce. Further, it highlights the nature of problems and challenges consumers face while making digital purchases, the need for more transparency and disclosure on the part of traders, and how the EU directives and Indian Consumer Protection Bill 2018 can play an important role in protecting the consumers. Moreover, the chapter highlights the regulatory mechanism of both EU and India and makes a comparative analysis of two. The chapter also deals with new changes made in India like e-commerce draft policy 2018. Last but not the least, to give an outline of consumer inclinations, opinions are expressed in order to present an overall picture of existing situations from the consumer perspective.

Times Have Changed, Don't Lose Business Because of “Sorry We Don't Accept Cards!”

Over the past decade, many mobile payment systems have been introduced to facilitate the ease with which businesses and customers' process payments. For these mobile payment systems to succeed, merchant acceptance is of utmost importance as merchants play a central in the mobile payment value chain. As such, the main purpose of this chapter is to assess the determinants of merchant acceptance of mobile card payment systems using the technology-organization-environment (TOE) framework. The study made use of structural equation modeling to evaluate the hypothesized association in the proposed model. Using data from 259 small businesses in the South African retail sector, this study found that two technological (i.e., relative advantage and perceived cost), one organizational (i.e., top management support), and two environmental (i.e., competitive pressure and customer pressure) context factors were significant determinants of merchant acceptance of mobile card payment systems. The chapter culminates with a discussion of the implications of the findings.

Understanding Drivers and Barriers Affecting Merchants' Adoption of Mobile Payments

The aim of this chapter is to explore the determinants of mobile payment from the merchants' perspective through a bibliographical review and a qualitative and quantitative study to determine the factors that encourage or obstruct the use of mobile payment tools by merchants. This chapter presents a qualitative and quantitative study on the adoption of mobile payment from the merchants' perspective based on a previous literature review. The results reveal the main barriers in the adoption of the new mobile payment systems (users' lack of knowledge, trust in the payment system, cost of the payment system adoption, and lack of security) as well as the main advantages perceived by merchants (convenience and speed, security, and higher turnover). According to these results, several proposals are put forward for each participant in the adoption process to promote the use of mobile payments as well as some future lines of research.

Mobile Travel Apps and Generation Y in Malaysia

Modern travelers prefer an easy and enjoyable experience upon travelling. According to several surveys, over 25% of respondents have installed mobile travel apps on their smartphone. Basically, the travel app is used to search and book flights or accommodation, while download and install the app is mainly to receive notification on the updated trip status and also for accessing app offline. Therefore, it's essential for tourism organization to emphasize on traveler preferences and new innovated technology could offer for competitive advantages in tourism industry. Generation Y grew up with technology and it constitutes 44% of population in Malaysia. Therefore, this research is focus on Generation Y in Malaysia, based on the UTAUT2 (Consumer Acceptance and Use of Information Technology) model to explore and predict the factors influencing the intention to use mobile travel apps. A total of 245 questionnaires were distributed to all states in Malaysia. Quantitative data were analyzed using IBM SPSS 22.0 and Smart PLS 3.0 software. The results findings show that performance expectancy has the highest significant relationship on behavioral to use mobile travel apps. It was followed by facilitating conditions and habit. Factors of effort expectancy, social influence, hedonic motivation and price value don't have much effect on individual's behavioral intention to use mobile travel apps. The theoretical, managerial and practical implications of these results are discussed.

The Impact of Emergent Technologies in the Evolutionary Path for M-Commerce

M-commerce is a fast-growing opportunity and is acting as an innovative lever for achieving the purpose of increasing sales while better interacting with the clients. Simultaneously, several emerging technologies have appeared in the market and promise to change the current m-commerce paradigm. Therefore, this chapter plans to explore a set of new trend technologies that can plan to build a more efficient relation between the consumer and the m-commerce platform. This study conducted surveys with several market players like marketers and IT leaders to understand their point of view, perceive the relevance and impact of these emergent technologies in m-commerce, identify resistance and challenge points to the proposed change, and look how to allow cohabitation between this new e-commerce paradigm and the traditional physical trade. The main novelty of this study is the inclusion of multiple points of view on the evolution of m-commerce which will allow companies and citizens to perceive the impact of emerging technologies in the future of m-commerce.

Understanding Consumers' Continuance Intention and Word of Mouth in Mobile Commerce Based on Extended UTAUT Model

Although until recently considered a novelty, mobile commerce (m-commerce) is nowadays one of the most popular mobile services, becoming mainstream in digital commerce. The objective of this study is to determine the predictors of consumers' continuance intention in m-commerce. In addition, it is well known that word of mouth communication is a very effective marketing technique, particularly for new products and services. Therefore, the study also models and examines the determinants of consumers' willingness to recommend m-commerce as a valuable service to their relatives, friends, and peers. The research model is based on unified theory of acceptance and use of technology (UTAUT) model, extended with additional variables like perceived trust and individual mobility. The results show that the main antecedent of continuance intentions towards m-commerce is social influence, while continuance intention was found as the most important predictor of word-of-mouth.