InShopnito: an advanced yet privacy-friendly mobile shopping application

Mobile Shopping Applications (MSAs) are rapidly gaining popularity. They enhance the shopping experience, by offering customized recommendations or incorporating customer loyalty programs. Although MSAs are quite effective at attracting new customers and binding existing ones to a retailer's services, existing MSAs have several shortcomings. The data collection practices involved in MSAs and the lack of transparency thereof are important concerns for many customers. This paper presents inShopnito, a privacy-preserving mobile shopping application. All transactions made in inShopnito are unlinkable and anonymous. However, the system still offers the expected features from a modern MSA. Customers can take part in loyalty programs and earn or spend loyalty points and electronic vouchers. Furthermore, the MSA can suggest personalized recommendations even though the retailer cannot construct rich customer profiles. These profiles are managed on the smartphone and can be partially disclosed in order to get better, customized recommendations. Finally, we present an implementation called inShopnito, of which the security and performance is analyzed. In doing so, we show that it is possible to have a privacy-preserving MSA without having to sacrifice practicality

Examining Consumer Pre-purchase Deliberation Process in an Online Marketplace

The research objective of this study was to examine the consumer pre-purchase deliberation process in an online marketplace. Especially, examining the role of extrinsic quality (website-related quality), intrinsic quality (business operation-related quality), reputation of the retailer (other consumers’ opinions), attitude toward the retailer, and intention to transact with the retailer in an online marketplace context was main purpose of this study. To collect the data, extensive online survey was performed. The data were analyzed through structural equation modeling test. Findings revealed that there are significant positive relationships among extrinsic quality, intrinsic quality, reputation of the retailer, attitude toward the retailer, and intention to transact with the retailer in an online marketplace. Especially, influence of extrinsic quality on intrinsic quality was considerably strong. However, influence of the reputation of the retailer showed weak influence on attitude toward the retailer unlike the suggestions of previous studies. In addition, the result of this study revealed that there is double-layered structure (extrinsic and intrinsic quality) in the quality of the retailer, which has not been conceptualized and empirically tested in the previous studies. Managerial and academic implications and future research directions based on the findings were offered

Shoppers’ loyalty in online marketplace: The impact of interface quality, application incentives, and security/privacy through flow experience

This study investigated the effects of Interface Quality, Application Incentives, and Security/Privacy on marketplace E-Loyalty through Flow experience. By prioritizing and improving these factors, marketplaces can foster a relational perspective that encourages users to develop a long-term relationship with the application, leading to sustained growth and success. Central to marketplace E-Loyalty is the relational perspective, which emphasizes consumers’ intention to establish a relationship with a marketplace application without shifting to competitors. Respondents were selected purposively to participate in an online survey, resulting in 305 usable responses. A partial least square-structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM) was employed to establish the measurement and structural fit of the data. The results confirmed that Interface Quality and Flow directly influenced E-Loyalty, while Interface Quality and Security/Privacy indirectly influenced Flow. Application Incentives were not found to bolster E-Loyalty directly and indirectly through Flow experience. This study provides a broader view of the importance of Interface Quality and Security/Privacy in promoting E-Loyalty with Flow while also offering a new perspective on the effect of Application Incentives on marketplace E-Loyalty from a relational standpoint

Customer Loyalty Programs and Privacy Concerns

In recent years, loyalty programs have been established allowing the creation of detailed consumer profiles by collecting and processing purchase information. Collecting this information, however, raises privacy concerns of customers. In this work, we provide the results of an empirical study which reveal that privacy concerns have an impact on the probability of participating in loyalty programs. We identify a privacy-sensitive segment of customers using demographic and psychographic data that, in principle, would participate in a loyalty program, however, refrains from doing so because of privacy concerns. Moreover, we found that people participating in customer loyalty programs are more concerned about their privacy than non-participants, which is an interesting though counterintuitive result

Semantic discovery and reuse of business process patterns

Patterns currently play an important role in modern information systems (IS) development and their use has mainly been restricted to the design and implementation phases of the development lifecycle. Given the increasing significance of business modelling in IS development, patterns have the potential of providing a viable solution for promoting reusability of recurrent generalized models in the very early stages of development. As a statement of research-in-progress this paper focuses on business process patterns and proposes an initial methodological framework for the discovery and reuse of business process patterns within the IS development lifecycle. The framework borrows ideas from the domain engineering literature and proposes the use of semantics to drive both the discovery of patterns as well as their reuse

Progress in information technology and tourism management: 20 years on and 10 years after the Internet—The state of eTourism research

This paper reviews the published articles on eTourism in the past 20 years. Using a wide variety of sources, mainly in the tourism literature, this paper comprehensively reviews and analyzes prior studies in the context of Internet applications to Tourism. The paper also projects future developments in eTourism and demonstrates critical changes that will influence the tourism industry structure. A major contribution of this paper is its overview of the research and development efforts that have been endeavoured in the field, and the challenges that tourism researchers are, and will be, facing

Strategic Use of Electronic Commerce by SMEs: Some Lessons from Cases in Japanese Distribution Channel and Research Framework

Nowadays, e-commerce and its applicability are in controversy throughout the world. Firms in all sizes are facing with various barriers in adopting e-commerce. For case of small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs), there are much more obstacles than large companies have face with, therefore, the model that is fit and effective for SMEs may quite different from large enterprises’ ones. This paper takes up case of Japanese distribution channels to illustrate the major impact of information technology on SMEs, finds out the role of e-commerce within SMEs distribution systems in Japanese economy, and then, points out some major barriers that prevent SMEs from entering into e-commerce. Finally, we propose an analytical framework for e-commerce penetration into SMEs as a guideline of future research in this area

Exploring the Role of Social Community Within an E-Marketplace

Marketplaces have provided a meeting place for communities to socialise, exchange information and transact business for many centuries. It is perhaps a natural progression that the inclusion of social network facilities should be an intrinsic part of e-marketplace development. This exploratory study examines the concept of designing social features into an e-marketplace by considering the needs of online community members. Using TradeMe, a New Zealand horizontal intermediary e-marketplace, as an illustrative case study it was found that the use of an online community to encourage information flow, reciprocity and trust has resulted in a vibrant, successful business model. Further research is required to investigate the viability of the community model beyond the case illustrated

Lemon Jelly : spreading lemon through the internet

Lemon Jelly is a fashion brand that produces and sells plastic footwear. The brand belongs to the company Procalçado, a family-owned Portuguese company that already had an experience of 40 years as a soles and footwear components producer before creating Lemon Jelly. The company is characterized by innovative production processes that allow them to produce plastic injected shoes. Lemon Jelly is mostly being sold through distributors, however it also has an online presence. The brand’s official website represents from 5 to 10% of the brand’s sales, which were up to 3 million euros in 2015. The motivation for this dissertation was to write a case study about the e-commerce strategy of Lemon Jelly. The main challenge of the brand is to understand how it can increase its online sales, being this analyzed in the Teaching Note chapter that explores some issues relevant to the main problem of the case and proposes recommendations for the future. The previous chapter, Literature Review, was designed to support the Teaching Note through theoretical concepts. It is concluded that there are several factors that can influence a brand’s online sales, therefore Lemon Jelly should select some of them according to its needs, while monitoring the results at the same time. It is also important to benchmark competitors and other players in the industry in order to keep updated through the digital evolution.A Lemon Jelly é uma marca de moda que produz e vende sapatos de plástico. A marca pertence à Procalçado, uma empresa familiar Portuguesa que já contava com 40 anos de experiência enquanto produtora de solas e componentes de sapatos antes de criar a Lemon Jelly. A empresa é caraterizada por produzir através de processos inovadores, o que lhe permite criar calçado de plástico injetado. A Lemon Jelly é vendida principalmente através de distribuidores, no entanto também está presente online. O website oficial da marca representa entre 5 a 10% das suas vendas totais, que atingiram 3 milhões de euros em 2015. A motivação para esta dissertação passou por escrever um caso de estudo sobre a estratégia de comércio eletrónico da Lemon Jelly. O principal desafio da marca é perceber como pode aumentar as suas vendas online, e para isto é feita uma análise no capítulo da nota de ensino, que explora algumas questões relevantes para o principal problema do caso e onde são propostas recomendações para o futuro. O capítulo anterior, de revisão de literatura, destina-se a apoiar a nota de ensino através de conceitos teóricos. Conclui-se que há vários fatores que podem influenciar as vendas online de uma marca, pelo que a Lemon Jelly deve selecioná-los consoante as suas necessidades, controlando ao mesmo tempo os resultados obtidos. É também importante efetuar comparações com concorrentes e outras empresas da indústria para a marca se manter atualizada perante a evolução digital