Shopping with a Smartphone: A French-Japanese Perspective

Abstract

This paper deals with smartphone experiences related to consumption activities and, more specifically, to shopping. If several studies, based on adoption models, show that consumers are ready to use their smartphones widely while shopping, including for paying, very few research provides insights into the real usage of smartphones in shopping behaviour. Therefore, this paper investigates in-depth real smartphone experiences in real shopping settings, in a two-country study involving France and Japan. A qualitative methodology with structured and semistructured interviews was conducted with a sample of Japanese and French consumers. A moderate inductive approach is adopted to analyse the data. With a typology of eight usages identified in both countries, the results show that, in real life, smartphones are primarily used for information, communication, and location purposes. This research also provides evidence on the roles of the smartphone as a shopping companion that assists in pre-purchase activities and as a facilitator tool at the purchase stage of a physical shopping. Overall, the research sheds light on the synchronicity value of the smartphone, specifically its capacity to answer the consumer's needs at the right time, the right place, and in the right situation.

Give or buy contexts and internet experience as a factor differentiating of readiness to provide different types of personal data in m-commerce

“…The first refers to making commercial transactions using mobile devices (Koh et al 2009;Wong et al, 2012), and thus concerns mcommerce as a part of e-commerce, determined by a specific type of hardware. The second -to new business models that result from the possibility of creating services based on user location (Cliquet et al, 2014;Khare & Rakesh, 2012). The third group of definitions, which is the most relevant for the current study, highlights the fact that the smartphone becomes a personalized communication point, which is permanently connected to the individual (Groß 2016…”

Differences between mobile and non-mobile buyers: comparing attitudinal, motive-related, and media behaviour

“…Due not only to the ongoing diffusion of m-shopping, but also to recording consumers' m-shopping experiences across countries, an increasing amount of research has focused on consumers' behavioural aspects when m-shopping (Lu et al, 2017). This is particularly evident in studies, for instances, that address the practices of m-shopping (e.g., Fuentes and Svingstedt, 2017;Cliquet et al, 2014) or m-buying activities (Kim et al, 2017;Hillman and Neustaedter, 2017;Rodríguez-Torrico et al, 2017;Kim et al, 2015;Wang et al, 2015), or that analyse theoretical frameworks like buyer cycles (Karaatli et al, 2010;Holmes et al, 2014) and confirmation/disconfirmation-paradigms (Hung et al, 2012;Schramm-Klein and Wagner, 2014;Shang and Wu, 2017). Because all of these approaches involve a certain degree of m-shopping experience, the focal point of these studies is behaviour investigation.…”

“…Hence, it is expected that digital natives use different devices to go online, but some prefer one device to others for their online purchases or simply for entertainment purposes (e.g., Rippé et al, 2017;Akçayır et al, 2016). Nowadays, smartphones in particular are considered to be the first point for requesting and consuming information, communicating, and using location-based services (Fuentes and Svingstedt, 2017;Cliquet et al, 2014). This further suggests that the smartphone is becoming more prominent for digital consumers as a shopping companion that assists in pre-and post-purchase activities, and as a facilitator tool at the purchase stage of physical shopping.…”

The Smart Church, a New Normal Church in Digital Era

“…Smartphone is also used in navigating while driving, checking on one's health condition, a nd enrolling in educational courses [8]. Smartphone is also used in enhancing mental health [9], shopping [10], banking activities [11], and many other activities in just one click. This paper will discuss the need for churches to build discipleship culture while integrating digital platforms as the backbone of the ministry.…”