Mobile commerce

Mobile Commerce ( M-Commerce , MC ) is a special form of electronic commerce ( English electronic commerce , or EC for short ) using wireless communication and mobile devices .

Mobile commerce refers to any type of business transaction in which the transaction partners use mobile electronic communication technologies (such as cellular communications , wireless LAN or Bluetooth ) in connection with mobile devices as part of the initiation of services, service agreements or provision of services . There is still no standardized framework of terms for mobile commerce in the literature, so that the term mobile business is often applied to this definition, analogously to electronic commerce , and mobile commerce is only used in the narrower sense, i.e. for the movement of goods. (In this narrower sense, the term MC could then also be translated as “mobile trade”, which would be misleading for the full content of the term.)

In addition to technical aspects, there are also economic aspects to be considered. B. the possibilities and special design rules in the implementation of MC applications, security aspects, the very special value chain in mobile commerce, business and revenue models, billing models and the various application areas of mobile commerce.

Value-added services based on SMS, in particular , have been discussed repeatedly in public in recent years.

Realization of MC applications

At the beginning of the considerations on MC applications, the prevailing conviction was that it is not enough to make an existing offer available on a mobile device, such as an existing website that is accessible via mobile devices. On the one hand, the use of mobile communication technologies and end devices has specific advantages and disadvantages, and on the other hand, user needs typically differ significantly from those for applications outside the MC.

This knowledge had a number of business implications and, on the technical side, also resulted in an important principle for the application design: "Design to Mobile". This meant that a mobile app , for example a shopping app, should be specially tailored to the potential and problems of mobility. Problems related primarily to the MC-relevant interfaces, the display and input options of the target devices available at that time (in the mass market) and the type and bandwidth of the data transmission available at that time ( GPRS , HSCSD ).

With the further development of the mobile Internet , in particular the introduction of UMTS and HSDPA and new billing models on the one hand (different from country to country), and more powerful end devices ( smartphones ) with more sophisticated operating systems, the restrictions on mobile apps have decreased significantly. It was found that mobile features such as location-based services played a role in special applications (e.g. digital fleet management ) rather than in the mass market at that time . The Apple iPhone and later devices with similar capabilities narrowed the gap between what can be sensibly used with mobile devices and what can be used with stationary devices.

Depending on the category and characteristics, interaction with the user can be implemented via various MC-relevant interfaces, including interactive voice response , sending / receiving SMS or MMS , internet-based simple interaction (e.g. using WAP or XHTML pages ), simple Applications (using simple script languages ) and complex applications (using regular high-level programming languages, e.g. based on J2ME , Symbian OS , Windows Mobile or BREW ). In addition, a distinction is made between pull services, in which the user initiates the data transfer, and push services, in which the user is actively addressed. The general user preferences in the MC require fast applications that require little memory and can be operated intuitively with just a few keystrokes.

According to the “G + J Mobile 360 ° // Round 3” panel survey by G + J, the number of mobile Internet users rose by 70 percent within two years. This also has an impact on mobile shopping behavior. A shop should nevertheless evaluate whether an MC application is worthwhile for the specific case. For this purpose, reliable figures must be created with which a potential loss account can be drawn up. On the one hand, the sales of the shop in a certain period are required for the calculation . With the help of tools such as Google Analytics , different data about the shop visitors can be determined. This also includes information about the device category.

Security aspects

From the provider's point of view, the level of information security of the applications he uses can influence his business activity in two main ways: Damage is caused by attacks by third parties or fraud on the part of the customer, or customers do not take advantage of an offer due to security concerns. This was an important topic, especially at the beginning: The security goals of authorization , confidentiality , integrity , authentication and non-repudiation can usually be achieved through technical protective measures, in particular the use of cryptography . This in turn requires a certain amount of computing power on the mobile end devices, which brought the issues of CPU power consumption and the amount of charge of the batteries used into focus.

Thanks to significant advances in both areas, it is now possible to use standard techniques to protect the specific points of attack in the MC, to protect the mobile device and the air interface . Digital certificates are used to protect against the installation of potentially harmful applications on mobile devices (e.g. security with Symbian OS ). In addition, thanks to significantly increased computing power, common mobile end devices now support Hypertext Transfer Protocol Secure for encrypting communication.

As is generally the case in the area of information security, a difference between the actual, objective security and that which the user perceives, the subjective security, must be taken into account. This is often the cause when end customers do not use an offer due to security concerns or the management of a company decides against the use of mobile technologies.

Value chain

A large number of value creation activities take place within and around the MC. Not only is there a strong interdependence between the most varied of these activities, but actors are often also active in several different areas. In the simplest case, this is disintermediation, i.e. expansion to neighboring value creation stages. This could be a content provider that prepares its own content and even makes it available via a portal. In other cases, technological, historical, or market power reasons have led firms to diversify. Typical examples are companies that have a high level of awareness among end customers as end-user equipment suppliers, but operate their actual core business as infrastructure suppliers.

This network of relationships influences many processes and can only be recorded if the consideration of the value creation activities in the MC is much broader than in electronic commerce, for example. This means that not only the primary activities - which contribute directly to products or services according to the above definition of the MC - have to be considered, but also secondary activities. Overall, three major value creation areas can be identified: the provision of equipment and applications, the provision of networks for wireless communication and the provision of services and content for end customers. For a detailed value chain cf.

Business, revenue and billing models

Business models in the MC can be broken down into the basic building blocks of (classic) goods, (classic) service, service, mediation, integration, content and context. One possibility of evaluating business models is the application of the theory of informational added value and its extension through the concept of mobile added value .

Revenue can be generated from three sources of revenue: directly from the user of an MC offer, indirectly related to the user of the MC offer (ie revenue from third parties) and indirectly related to the MC offer (ie within the scope of a non-MC offer ). In addition, revenues can be categorized according to the type of revenue. A distinction is made between transaction-dependent and transaction-independent revenues. In order to generate direct transaction-dependent revenues, functioning mobile payment is required, in the simplest case by means of billing via the mobile phone bill.

An MC offer is often purchased from the mobile operator and offered to the customer on his own account. In the age of 2.5 and 3G networks, however, the offer directly from the service provider is also increasingly gaining ground on the German market. Here, the provider enters into a direct customer relationship and provides added value through the content and quality of the service, which the customer pays for in addition to transporting the data. There is some sort of balance between the provider and the network operator between the added value and the provisioning effort. If the data volume and the added value of the service are priced separately, this is referred to as premium tariff billing; If the customer pays a fixed sum for the use of the service, which includes transport and added value, one speaks of fixed price billing. The necessary division of the fee between the mobile phone and service provider is called revenue sharing.

Areas of application

Important areas of application are

MC applications and services that are offered by mobile radio, portal and specialized service providers for end customers or for business customers, in particular mobile commerce, search and information services as well as portals and entertainment. There are z. B. Mobile banking , mobile entertainment and mobile information services (also known as mobile content ), mobile marketing and mobile ticketing .

Mobile business process , the application of mobile technologies to integrate mobile workplaces into the electronic operational performance chain , especially in connection with the improvement of business processes.

literature

B. Diederich, T. Lerner, R. Lindemann, R. Vehlen: Mobile Business - Markets, Techniques, Business Models. Gabler, Wiesbaden 2001.
A. Menn: Shopping frenzy on the mobile phone: Faster, better, cheaper - how the smartphone is revolutionizing shopping. In: WirtschaftsWoche. 9/2012, p. 62ff.
Netsize: The Netsize Guide 2009 . (PDF-RAR, 364 pages, 37 MB)
D. Pauly: M-Commerce and consumer protection - the implementation of consumer protection law transparency and information obligations in mobile electronic commerce. Oldenburg 2005.
J. Roth: Mobile Computing. 2nd Edition. Heidelberg 2005.
Klaus Turowski, Key Pousttchi: Mobile Commerce: Basics and Techniques. Springer, 2003.

Web links

Individual evidence

↑ Chamber of Labor : AK warns of "turned on" expensive 09x SMS. ( Memento of March 15, 2009 in the Internet Archive ) March 18, 2008.

↑ Federation of German Industry : Consumer Policy in Dialog. ( Memento of March 20, 2009 in the Internet Archive ) October 15, 2004, p. 9f.

↑ Gruner + Jahr : ( Page no longer available , search in web archives: G + J Mobile 360 ° Study // Round 3. ) September 2014, p. 37f.@1@ 2Template: Dead Link / www.marketing.ch

↑ K. Turowski, K. Pousttchi: Mobile Commerce: Basics and Techniques. Springer, 2003, p. 129f.

↑ K. Turowski, K. Pousttchi: Mobile Commerce: Basics and Techniques. Springer, 2003, pp. 143f.

↑ K. Turowski, K. Pousttchi: Mobile Commerce: Basics and Techniques. Springer, 2003, pp. 168f.

[1] Chamber of Labor : AK warns of "turned on" expensive 09x SMS. ( Memento of March 15, 2009 in the Internet Archive ) March 18, 2008.

[2] Federation of German Industry : Consumer Policy in Dialog. ( Memento of March 20, 2009 in the Internet Archive ) October 15, 2004, p. 9f.