Mobile Electronic Commerce

107

chapter six

Comparative study of in-store

mobile commerce applications

and feature selection, targeted

at enhancing the overall

shopping experience

Electra Safari and Dimitrios Zissis

6.1 Introduction

In recent years, we have witnessed the explosive growth of a previously

nonexistent market. The widespread use of personal computers and the

introduction of high-speed Internet connectivity made the process of

sharing business information, maintaining business relationships, and

conducting business transactions by means of telecommunications net-

works a reality. Since the 1990s, a new type of electronic commerce con-

ducted through handheld devices has been rapidly gaining momentum,

mostly due to developments in communication technologies and porta-

ble computing. This subset of e-commerce, labeled mobile commerce, is

attracting signicant attention and is shifting the way we conduct busi-

ness from a wired to a wireless environment, using simply our handheld

Contents

6.1 Introduction ........................................................................................... 107

6.2 Mobile commerce in the shopping eld ............................................ 109

6.3 Consumer behavior ...............................................................................113

6.4 Choice of comparative study and environment ................................113

6.4.1 Requirements elicitation ...........................................................114

6.4.2 Communication and requirements validation ......................117

6.4.3 On-site evaluation and comparative study ........................... 123

6.5 Conclusion ............................................................................................. 126

References ........................................................................................................ 127

108 Mobile Electronic Commerce

terminals anytime and anywhere (Ngai and Gunasekaran 2005). Due to

its characteristics (among others ubiquity, personalization, and exibility),

mobile commerce promises businesses unprecedented market potential,

great productivity, and high protability (Siau etal. 2003). The number of

mobile phone users is rising continuously as the market of mobile tech-

nologies is promising speed and convenience. Currently, an overall of

10% of global website views are from mobile devices (smartphones and

tablets). On Christmas day 2012, more than 50% of online activity came

from mobile devices (Mixpanel 2012). Mobile technology in Japan cur-

rently accounts for 35% of all e-commerce transactions. In 5years’ time,

more than 50% of all transactions will be through smartphones (IPC 2012).

Various kinds of mobile applications have emerged as a result of

these advances and are penetrating our everyday life, changing human

behaviors, and generating important social and economic impacts (Xu

etal. 2008). Among these efforts, mobile applications for shopping come

at the intersection of ubiquitous computing and electronic commerce

and are gaining attention from both communities (Xu etal. 2008). Prior

work though has mostly focused on the transactional functions of mobile

phones and information consumption on-the-go and less on the experi-

ential aspect of shopping and how this can be improved via the use of

wireless devices (Xu etal. 2008). Nowadays, there is a fundamental blur-

ring of the boundaries between online and off-line shopping (Gish 2012).

Smartphones are fundamentally changing how people shop, browse,

use coupons, nd locations, and enter local and near eld promotions.

Shopping behavior is changing and showrooming and snacking (shop-

ping in a spare ve minutes) are increasing (Gish 2012). The real and the

virtual world are converging into a complete shopping experience. It is

becoming typical user behavior for consumers when in stores to go for

their handheld devices in search of additional product information, bet-

ter prices, and location information in an attempt to speed up the overall

shopping process and gain a better shopping experience.

Channels are blending and consumers are shopping wherever, when-

ever, and however they want. According to Forrester, 50% of retail sales

are inuenced online (IPC 2012). As part of its “Mobile path to Purchase”

research, Nielsen and Telmetrics reported that a 46% of mobile users rely

exclusively on their mobile device for retail prepurchases in the stores

while, interestingly, half of the audience does not need to do a PC research

before buying (Sterling 2013).

However, current retailers do not seem to be tuning successfully into

this new trend. While in wired settings, we have accumulated the neces-

sary knowledge to design and develop commercial systems effectively,

the eld of m-commerce presents not only unique opportunities but also

challenges. It faces a number of businesses, technical, and legal chal-

lenges that differ from traditional e-commerce, specically in relation to