Abstract

The rapid adoption of smart phones and mobile Internet usage is now changing the way consumers shop. With the emerging application of SOLOMO (social, location, mobile) concept, O2O (online to offline) application has become the unique and major attribute for mobile commerce. Consumers can use O2O application not only for pure consuming purpose, but they can act as opinion providers, idea creators or the roles of marketing and sales representatives for online retailers as well. Though the above important and unique O2O application features can be well-recognized from the many practical retailing evidences, academic attention paid to understand the impacts of seamless and mobile O2O features on the formation of the degree of perceived customer participation, relationship quality toward O2O application and subsequent behavioural outcomes is still relatively sparse. In order to address the above research gaps, the objectives of this study are to investigate the effects of the unique attributes of O2O smart phone application on customer participation, relationship quality and subsequent behavioural outcomes through the lens of the uses and gratifications (U&G) and servicedominant logic. The research context of our study focused on the O2O application platform or hub combining internal and external resources from both a single supply chain and a set of supply and demand networks, such as the O2O app of Starbucks coffee, Mos Burger, or AccuPas, an integrated platform for external companies and it allows these external companies to create any marketing or sales activities across pre-purchase, purchase and post-purchase stages. The online survey yielded a total of 196 completed questionnaires. Results confirmed that user participation and relationship quality are two significant determinants to facilitate user’s behavioural loyalty toward the usage of O2O application and impulse buying intention. Besides, we also confirmed that user’s O2O application adoption motivation is a second-order composite assessment, in terms of information, convenience, entertainment and social interaction, and such motivation has positive effect both on user participation and relationship quality. Theoretical and practical implications were also addressed in this study.

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