Key Drivers of Mobile Commerce An Exploratory Study

Mobile commerce is a business model that allows a consumer to complete all steps of a transaction by using a mobile phone or personal digital assistant (PDA) rather than by going to a physical store or by voice. Downloading ring tones and screensavers and using different types of paid information (traffic reports, sports news, etc.) and entertainment services (SMS chats, games, etc.) are common types of mobile commerce, but mobile commerce transactions can also include purchasing physical goods such as books to be delivered offline. The rapid evolution of B2C e-Commerce alternative interaction channels like World Wide Web, Mobile Telephony and Digital TV along with the continuously changing consumer behavioral patterns, has created a strong need for research tailored to the peculiarities and needs of the aforementioned emerging “distance shopping” channels. Stimulated by these evolutions, this paper focuses on the investigation of consumer attitudes and behaviors against mobile commerce in towards identifying he critical success factors for accelerating its usage. An online consumer survey constituting the research vehicle was employed within an exploratory research design setting. Despite the fact that some considerable differences regarding mobile commerce adoption rates and consumer behavioral patterns were observed, it was found that mobile commerce penetration in India is on its infancy. However, improving mobile devices, designing more user-friendly shopping interfaces, developing effective applications and services, along with reducing prices, influencing opinion leaders and solving security, bandwidth and coverage problems, constitute the critical success factors for accelerating mobile commerce adoption amongst youth in particular.

Keywords: M-commerce; online survey; success factors; mobile telephony; distance shopping.

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