Mobile Shopping Behavior: a Bibliometric Analysis

Frame of the research:The increase in the penetration rate of smartphones (3 billion smartphone users in 2020), together with the spread of broadband connectivity, represents a driving force for e-commerce that will increasingly be supported by mobile technology.By the end of 2021, 72.9% of global e-commerce sales will be generated via m-commerce and that by 2023 m-commerce will increase by 250% from 1.9 trillion US dollars in 2018 to 4.3 trillion US dollars.In light of these considerations, it is not surprising that, in the last two decades, research on m-commerce and the factors that determine its use has increased considerably Objectives: The work aims to provide a systematization of research on the topic of mobile commerce through a bibliometric analysis of the literature on m-commerce from a consumer behavior perspective in order to identify the most studied and emerging strands, which may represent future areas of research as well as useful directions for manufacturers and retailers that intend to develop m-commerce and omnichannel management strategies.Methodology: The work is based on a bibliometric analysis of the literature on mobile commerce from a consumer behavior perspective analyzing the contributions published from January 2000 to July 2020.The research was carried out following two phases: identifying contributions through the online database Web of Science (WoS) and bibliometric analysis through SciMAT.Findings: The results of a bibliometric analysis conducted on the research contributions of the last 20 years provide a clear picture of future research directions and the areas on which companies will have to focus in the development of omnichannel business models.Through the WoS database, 275 articles were collected, then analyzed with SciMAT in the two time periods 2000-2015 and 2016-2020.In the first period, contributions focused on identifying the antecedents of mobile commerce adoption and its relationships with trust, loyalty and customer satisfaction and its repeated use.In the second period, the focus was on interaction with other channels, with a multichannel and omnichannel perspective.Research limits: Although WoS is considered the most suitable data source for most publications, some contributions included in other databases may have been overlooked.In addition, the research does not take into account the contributions of the whole of 2020, which was most impacted by the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic.Practical implications: From a research perspective, it is possible to draw up the evolutionary picture of the topic, identifying the most covered and emerging strands representing valid opportunities for future research.From a managerial perspective, the research systematizes the results of existing studies by providing useful indications on mobile commerce strategies in retailing.