The Version Effect of Apps and Operating Systems in Mobile Commerce

Different mobile operating system or shopping app versions enable different functionality and information flow, thus creating various mobile shopping environments. In general, up-to-date versions provide better information flows and richer functionality. However, mobile operating systems and shopping apps affect consumer behavior through different mechanisms. An up-to-date mobile operating system reduces the system response time, while an up-to-date mobile shopping app improves algorithms for better search accuracy or cross selling. The former encourages consumer search, whereas the latter improves consumer search efficiency and reduces consumer search effort. Using a unique large-scale clickstream data set from a mobile commerce retailer, we examine the effect of mobile shopping app and mobile operating system versions on consumer search and impulse purchase behaviors in mobile commerce. Our results show that consumers with an up-to-date mobile operating system or a previous version of a mobile shopping app conduct more searches in terms of increased product page views and time spent on product pages, which in turn results in higher consumer impulse purchase probability. However, consumers' search effort regarding individual products is not affected by versions. Surprisingly, though more page views or time spent may boost purchases, we find consumer search affects impulse purchases in a non-linear fashion in that page views and time spent have a decreasing rate of impact. Our computations show that when compared to using a previous mobile operating system version, using an up-to-date operating system increases consumer search activities by 60.45 product pages or 521.30 seconds spent browsing. In comparison, when compared to using a previous mobile app version, using an up-to-date app decreases consumer search activities by 129.34 product pages or 1446.48 seconds spent browsing