The Internet of Things is Changing E-Commerce: How to Capture its Business Opportunities by Creating IoT services for the Consumer: A Mixed Methods Study
2018 (English)Independent thesis Advanced level (degree of Master (Two Years)), 20 credits / 30 HE credits
Student thesis
Abstract [en]
The Internet of Things (IoT) presents businesses new opportunities to create and capture value. This is driven by new services offered to consumers, also in e-commerce. Literature does not provide appropriate guidance on how e-commerce retailers should approach this emerging technology. This study aimed at filling this gap by identifying and analyzing possible IoT services that can be implemented within the B2C e-commerce sector. To address the purpose of the study, we used mixed methods. First, we conducted an inductive qualitative study from which five services with different use case scenarios surfaced. We analysed them regarding their implications for the IoT architecture, the benefits for the customer journey, and consumer-oriented quality features. The services possessed a similar technological composition that is in line with existing literature. Second, the qualitative study built the basis for the derivation of our conceptual model. This enabled us to challenge the services’ business relevance based on a few essential hypotheses around consumer acceptance. Our conceptual model laid the ground for empirically testing the effect of consumers’ perceived usefulness, -ease of use, -enjoyment, -security, -choice, and -monetary savings on the consumer acceptance. The results showed a significant consumer priority for experiencing useful, secure and fun services as a main demand throughout all touchpoints of the customer journey. Finally, it was our motivation to provide implications on how managers of e-commerce retailers can commercialize these IoT recommendations in a beneficial business manner.
Place, publisher, year, edition, pages
2018. , p. 117
Keywords [en]
Internet of Things, E-Commerce, IoT Architecture, Customer Journey, Technology Acceptance Model
National Category
Business Administration
Identifiers
URN: urn:nbn:se:hj:diva-39903ISRN: JU-IHH-FÖA-2-20180741OAI: oai:DiVA.org:hj-39903DiVA, id: diva2:1214286
External cooperation
Otto (GmbH & Co KG)
Subject / course
JIBS, Business Administration
Presentation
2018-05-29, 08:00
Supervisors
Examiners
2018-07-112018-06-062018-07-11Bibliographically approved