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The growth of information and communication technology and smartphones has facilitated the development and use of new types of mobile apps (Hsiao et al., 2016). Apps are created and designed to be downloaded and used via a smartphone or similar mobile platform (e.g. iPad, tablet) (Alalwan, 2020). Early mobile apps primarily meant software for searching general information such as calendar and contact management, email, and weather information. However, due to the rapid increase in demand and the wide availability of development tools, expansion into various areas such as mobile games, e-books, SNS, finance, lifestyle, and entertainment is being made (Hsu & Lin, 2015). Along with this, App-based O2O service has emerged as a new business model. O2O service takes the form of consumers ordering online and receiving goods or services offline based on ICT. O2O service is based on ICT, in which consumers order online and receive goods or services offline. In other words, it means an offline purchase through the web (Xiao et al., 2019). O2O services have a wide range of food, hotels, real estate, car rentals, bicycle rentals, taxis, etc. (Kang & Namkung, 2019; Du & Tang, 2014).
Food delivery, which is a kind of App-based O2O service, is increasing in use worldwide (Li et al., 2020; Karulkar et al., 2019). Zhao & Bacao (2020) investigated the usage status of Food Delivery App (FDA) for 532 Chinese people. According to them, 84.78% of respondents use the FDA at least once a week, and 45.68% of them use the FDA once every three days. According to Lee et al. (2019), a study on the acceptance of the FDA by Koreans, the proportion of respondents who use the FDA 3-4 times a month out of 340 respondents accounted for more than half, accounting for 56.18%(n=191). This is because the app has the advantage that it can meet the requirements of consumers anytime, anywhere by integrating mobile Internet and location-based services (Xu, 2017).
Recently, the use of O2O services has further increased due to the characteristic of non-face-to-face transactions through technology between customers and sellers. In addition, the spread of COVID-19 focused on seeking ways to minimize face-to-face contact (Zhao & Bacao, 2020). In particular, digitalization has accelerated in the services and retail sectors where there is a lot of interpersonal contact (Shahbaz et al., 2020). O2O services are becoming more popular due to the characteristic of non-face-to-face transactions through technology between customers and sellers (Zhao & Bacao, 2020; Kang & Namkung, 2019). When the FDA uses a mobile app to order food, the order history is transferred to the restaurant and the cooked food is served to the user via delivery (Li et al., 2020). Therefore, it can be expected that the FDA process would have attracted more users from the effects of COVID-19. According to data from Korea's National Statistical Office, the amount corresponding to food service in July 2020 was 1.378 trillion dollars. This is the result of an increase of 66.3% compared to July 2019 (KOSIS).
It is necessary to search for factors that will enable customers who are attracted to use the FDA continuously in such a situation where the use of the FDA has increased rapidly. The success of a O2O service depends on its continuous use of the system rather than quickly acceptance by the user (Bhattacherjee, 2001a). In particular, it can be seen that the FDA market has not yet entered a maturity stage as it is expanding not only food delivery but also daily goods delivery (Zhao & Bacao, 2020; Saad, 2020). Therefore, joint efforts through understanding with platforms, restaurants, consumers, government ministries and other stakeholders are needed to create a better environment of use (Saad, 2020).