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Worldwide e-commerce continues to develop quickly. In 2017, the e-commerce share of retail sales in China exceeded 20%, while in Korea and the UK – 15%, in the US – 10%, and in Germany, France, Japan, and Brazil it was between 5%-10% (Meeker, 2018). In many countries, e-commerce growth is accelerating; e.g., in the USA, year/year 2016/2017 growth was 16%, while a year before it was 14%. Currently, a trend to initiate e-commerce transactions from smartphones instead of computers is observed. In 2017, the usage of mobile apps devoted to shopping increased 54% year/year, while the average mobile app usage has grown only 6% (Klotzbach, 2017). When shopping online with a mobile device, the best way to pay is provided by m-payment systems, i.e., any payment system that is installed on a mobile device such as a smartphone, tablet, smartwatch, or other wearable. In 2016, transactions conducted via such systems were estimated to total US $41.8 billion globally, comprising 8.6% of all non-cash transactions (Bose & Mellado, 2018).
For an m-payment system to be effectively deployed, two conditions must be met: (1) the system must be provided to consumers as a payment option by e-merchants, i.e., merchants selling on-line, and (2) the system must be accepted by e-consumers when completing their on-line transactions. The problem of acceptance of m-payment systems by e-consumers that has been widely investigated. In 2015, Dahlberg et al. presented a critical literature review (Dahlberg et al., 2015) on this problem. Dahlberg et al. concluded that there is no need to conduct additional research on the acceptance of m-payment systems by e-consumers because we still do not know much about the acceptance of m-payment systems by e-merchants. In addition, they noted that it is unclear what determines the decisions of e-merchants to deploy m-payment systems in their businesses. Dahlberg et al. strongly encouraged scientists to collect data from the real world, i.e., to collect data about real m-payment systems from real e-merchants.
Teo et al. (2005) interviewed randomly selected businesses to explore inhibitors and facilitators of m- payment adoption in Australia. They found that some businesses were reluctant to trial m-payments before mass acceptance.
Mallat and Tuunainen (2008) conducted an exploratory study dominated by a qualitative methodology in Finland to organize determinants of merchants’ adoption intention. They found lack of standardization and critical mass, as well as complexity of m-payment systems to be among the main adoption barriers.
Van Der Heijden (2002) interviewed 13 executives in Sweden and the Netherlands who were directly responsible for the deployment of mobile payment systems. They found that ease of use is important in establishing a merchant’s acceptance of an m-payment system.
Lai and Chuah (2010) also attempted to explore merchant adoption, although they conducted their interviews with industry experts rather than with the merchants themselves.
Silenzi’s doctoral research (Silenzi, 2012) involved interviews with managers from 15 international companies. He found that the key benefits of m-payments for merchants is in facilitating purchases from unbanked users, increasing impulse purchases, and developing new business models.
Guo and Bouwman (2016) proposed a framework for the analyses of the m-payment ecosystem. Starting from a set of propositions, they conducted in-depth interviews to analyze the multifaceted nature of the Chinese m-payment market. They identified the connection between the adoption process and the business ecosystem configurations.