Mobile Commerce and Success Factors. Simulation and Modeling of the Problem

Mobile commerce (m-commerce) is a rapidly growing industry, which derives from e-commerce, and within the next few years is expected to conquer a great part of the global market share. There are several factors that can play a major role in the success of an m-commerce website. The ones that should be taken most into account can be distinguished in three categories. The first one is Security and Trust, which concerns safe transactions online and giving the user a sense of trust and no second thoughts when buying a product through his/her smartphone. Second, Personalization–Localization, which is about adjusting properly the content depending on the user’s preferences and local needs, trends, and conditions. Last but not least, user’s convenience, which can be described in three sub-categories: Speed, Accessibility, and Mobile Friendly Design. All of the above contribute in a pleasant online experience for the user. This research takes the investigation of the most crucial factors one step further, examining them from a different perspective, through the innovative way of a dynamic simulation model. After the appropriate data were given to the model in order to make it sufficient to run and return valuable information, the simulation was executed for the desired time (in this research a year), the results were collected and the conclusion that came up was that security-trust is the most crucial factor in the success of m-commerce, whose absence could result in the minimization of it as far as sales are concerned.