Mobile Services In Retail And Their Influence On Customer Satisfaction

Master's Thesis from the year 2014 in the subject Business economics - Offline Marketing and Online Marketing, grade: 2,3, University of Applied Sciences Essen, course: Master of Business Administration, language: English, abstract: Worldwide there is a strong growth in smartphone owners in comparison to previous years and the number of them will surpass the 1,4 billion mark worldwide by the end of 2013 (statista, 2013). Today, more than one third of world’s population and more than 40 percent of Germany’s population own a smartphone (GS1, 2013, 5, statista, 2013). Mobile phones and other mobiles are becoming part of our everyday life and are changing the way people manage it. They are the most used daily consumer good in the world and by this are becoming personal assistants that give users an always-connected and always-on lifestyle – a mobile lifestyle. Users are able to do everything from everywhere at any time with it: from doing business, communicating or playing interactive games to shopping. The increasing number of mobile devices and by this the anywhere accessibility of the Internet have an impact on the consumers’ behavior in stationary stores. Customers do price checks with their smartphone, watching product videos or reading product reviews in the store and more often buy the desired product elsewhere. Retailers face the challenge of understanding how customers interact with their mobiles while shopping and take advantage of any opportunities to increase customer conversion and gain loyal customers (comscore, 2012). Customers expect mobile offerings. Today some retailers already respond on these demand and development, and try with new possibilities of mobile marketing to bring customers back from digital world into their stores (KPMG, 2012, 38), but they have to add value to all their offering and products and even to new technological possibilities like mobile services, which do not automatically generate advantages over competition (Rudolph/Emrich, 2008, 266). Mobile services in retail are services, that can be used independently of temporal and spatial restraints, and that are accessed through a mobile device in retail environment like i.e. mobile couponing receiving or paying with mobile phone. When launching such a service the retailer has to be sure whether a mobile service has the power to influence customer satisfaction inside the store. Customer satisfaction is the important connection between activities of the retailer and the resulting behaviour like repeat purchasing, cross selling, recommendation or complaint and by this relevant for economical success of a company (Homburg, 2008, 19).

Mobile devices have become an essential item in the daily lives of many people. As with any innovation, mobile services present both opportunities and challenges to current business models. The development of mobile communication coupled with evolving mobile services have completely changed the business landscape and have transformed consumer behavior. It is important to understand the impact that these services have on users’ lives, business, and society. Impact of Mobile Services on Business Development and E-Commerce is a collection of innovative research that focuses on the importance of mobile services in business development and discusses the provision of decentralized services, mobile commerce and marketing, and new models for the delivery of mobile services such as business-to-consumer and peer-to-peer. While highlighting topics including global market, consumer behavior, and customer satisfaction, this book is ideally designed for business managers, executives, marketers, entrepreneurs, financial advisors, consumer behavior analysts, computer engineers, software developers, IT specialists, students, researchers, and business professionals.

Mobile financial services (MFS) are of major interest and importance to both researchers and practitioners. The role played by nonbanking actors including telecoms and FinTech firms as well as other participants, such as PayPal and Amazon, in developing and deploying innovative financial and payment services is undeniable. Peer2peer (P2P) payments from nonbank services are becoming increasingly commonplace and will shortly be codified by EC (EU?) regulations requiring banks to provide access to consumer data for third-party app developers and service providers. Three major mobile financial systems—mobile banking, mobile payments, and branchless banking—currently dominate the electronic retail banking sector. Although interconnected and interrelated, their business models, regulatory frameworks, and target markets are distinct. This book provides a unified perspective on MFS and discusses its evolution, growth, and future, as well as identifying the frameworks, stakeholders, and technologies used in financial information systems in general and MFS in particular. Academics and researchers in digital and financial marketing will find this book an invaluable resource, as will bank executives, regulators, policy makers, FinTech professionals, and anyone interested in how mobile technology, social media and financial services will increasingly intersect.

The booming revolution in Information Technology sector has pushed India's telecom market significantly. India has shown tremendous growth in the past few years in terms of cellular services. For the past few years consumers prefer wireless mode of telephone services to wire line services. As per the survey report made by Voice & Data by the end of October 2014, the number of mobile subscribers has increased from 957.61 million at the end of the September 2014 to 962.63 million at the end of the October, 2014.

In the era of digital technology, business transactions and partnerships across borders have become easier than ever. As part of this shift in the corporate sphere, managers, executives, and strategists across industries must acclimate themselves with the challenges and opportunities for conducting business. Mobile Commerce: Concepts, Methodologies, Tools, and Applications provides a comprehensive source of advanced academic examinations on the latest innovations and technologies for businesses. Including innovative studies on marketing, mobile commerce security, and wireless handheld devices, this multi-volume book is an ideal source for researchers, scholars, business executives, professionals, and graduate-level students.

Retail Service Quality is a vital driver in determining customer satisfaction, which in turn promotes customer loyalty and reduces switching intentions. Service quality is a solution to build customer satisfaction which could lead to customer loyalty hence reducing switching intentions. The current study has investigated the interrelationship between service quality, customer satisfaction, customer loyalty with switching intentions of customers, and the moderating role of price discounts and store ethnicity, in a single framework. Random sampling was used by administering standardized questionnaires personally to 450 hypermarket customers located in the Eastern Province of Saudi Arabia. The results confirmed that retail service quality has significant positive influence on customer satisfaction, and the positive effect of customer satisfaction on customer loyalty. Besides, the study verified store ethnicity and price discounts acted as moderating mechanism for explaining the switching intentions of satisfied and loyal customers. The results serve as a guideline for top managers of the hypermarkets to design appropriate policies and strategies in terms of retail service quality, price discounts and identifying the needs of ethnic groups in a particular region. This will help to enhance customer satisfaction and customer loyalty hence reducing switching intentions of customers.

Global economic scenarios are increasing in complexity due to the recent global financial crisis, globalization, the evolution of ICT, and the changing behaviors of consumers. This has made it difficult to predict trends and build strategies within the retail industry. As a result, long-term forecasts and schedules are not possible, and more research is needed to explore today’s consumer profile and set the frameworks for future recovery strategies. Predicting Trends and Building Strategies for Consumer Engagement in Retail Environments is a pivotal reference source that provides practical insights into improving the understanding of complex retail environments and consumer shopping behaviors in order to predict trends and develop strategies for retailers in times of economic crisis. While highlighting topics such as consumer engagement, industry models, and market globalization, this publication explores qualitative and quantitative methods of interest and the multidisciplinary approaches revolving around the industry. This book is ideally designed for marketers, managers, practitioners, retail professionals, academicians, researchers, and students seeking current research on relationship marketing, digital marketing, service management, and complexity theories.

The usage of smartphones is on the brink of revolutionizing the way people shop and emphasizes the strategic importance of mobile services for retailers. This holds especial importance for the customer interface design (e.g. in-store), as this is one of the most important responsibilities of a retailer within the value chain. Therfore, the presented research in this dissertation focuses on the acceptance of mobile services as a retailer initiative, which support the customer information search and product evaluation in-store. A scenario-based experimental approach is used for the purpose of...

The explosion of mobile access across the globe has shaken the foundations of the traditional sales funnel, and businesses are scrambling to adapt and find new ways to tap into the market. For all their effort, many have failed to realize that the issue is not how to reach the customer where they are, but where they are going and their mindset at the moment. With the staggering growth in the use of mobile technology as both product research and purchase point, businesses have yet to fully understand the important role mobile devices play in the basic structure of the traditional shopping model and the new importance on linking behavior with location. With the death of the traditional sales funnel comes author Chuck Martin's new model, the Mobile Shopping Life Cycle. Based on the author's in-depth research, Martin has identified the six specific moments in the timeline of the sale which marketers must target effectively in order to reach the mobile buyer. From location-based marketing to mobile payment systems, Martin's model gives marketers access to the tools necessary to build a new sales framework that properly addresses the future of the market.