Consumer attitudes towards proximity sensors in the South African retail market

Abstract

The advancement of smartphone technology and the penetration within the market makes these devices an incredible medium for retailers to engage with their customers. Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) extends the capabilities of smartphones even further and thus provides the potential for retailers to offer services to customers based on their location that is challenging with conventional techniques. Before embarking on developing solutions, it is vital to understand the factors that influence consumers to embrace this technology and ensure retailers can offer appropriate services to their customers. While a number of studies have discussed BLE, very little have examined it from the consumers' perspective. This study extends the UTAUT2 model with ‘privacy concern’ and explores the factors influencing consumers' behaviour towards proximity sensors within a retail store. The results confirm that all the factors except for ‘price value’ are statistically significant.