Value Creation in Mobile Commerce: Findings from a Consumer Survey

Although little is known about consumers’ attitudes towards wireless marketing channels, many organizations are today making considerable investments to take advantage of the new business possibilities offered by wireless technologies - encouraged by optimistic, yet contradictory forecast on the future volume of m-commerce. This paper highlights the importance of setting out from a consumer perspective when developing m-commerce strategies, proposing an analytical framework that can be used to assess whether, and in what ways, specific mobile services are likely to offer value for wireless Internet users. The paper reports on a national consumer survey conducted to investigate the Finnish consumers’ willingness to use a number of initial mobile services, and to explore whether consumers recognize the value proposition of these applications. Besides offering theoretical and empirical insights relating to the value-creating features of m-commerce from a consumer’s point of view, the study presents results indicating a rather low willingness to use mobile services in general, but an exceptionally high willingness to use some applications. The results do not, however, support the supposition that m-commerce is likely to increase the overall volume of ecommerce significantly by penetrating into untapped markets (non-PC users)