Exploring the Values of U-Commerce from the Customers' Perspective

U-commerce has emerged as the next weave of commerce. It presents a new channel/medium for commerce and shows great promises for future applications and potential markets. This study aims to uncover the values of u-commerce from the customers’ perspectives, to understand what customers desire and expect from u-commerce, and to identify the functions and features they want in u-commerce. Value refers to what one desires to achieve. The scenario-based method was adopted by using video clips to illustrate applications of u-commerce for customers and to provide subjects with the necessary background information and knowledge about the emerging u-commerce phenomenon. The Value-Focused Thinking approach, which provides a systematic way to articulate and organize values, was applied to determine the values of ucommerce to users and define the relationships among those values. The result of this study is a means-ends objective network that depicts the fundamental objectives that will drive customers to use or deploy u-commerce. The network also illustrates how the fundamental objectives can be achieved through means objectives. We further propose a research model that categorizes the ten fundamental objectives into four value sub-components – sociopsychological, economic, functional, and product values. The derived means-ends objective network and value model can serve as a conceptual foundation for future research in u-commerce and provide useful guidelines to practitioners in developing and implementing u-commerce.