The impact of e-retail characteristics on initiating mobile retail services: A modular innovation perspective

The rise and challenges of m-commerce have led to an urgent need to examine how firms adopt the emerging sales channel. Early studies mainly discussed the differences between e-commerce and m-commerce. Our study shows the modular innovation from e-retailing to m-retailing, which changes the core component of service delivery but keeps the operations intact, provides more opportunities for well-entrenched firms. Using a dataset of e-retailers, we find e-retail characteristics have an impact on firm's migration to the mobile domain. Firms with online service competencies, economies of scale, and physical outlets are more inclined to exploit opportunities provided by mobile technologies.