Exploring the Factors Affecting the Acceptance of Mobile Coupons in Malaysia

Distributing discount coupons through mobile phone text messages or short message service has become the latest promotional strategies of companies. Mobile coupons present an exciting new opportunity to target consumers with highly customized offers. Not much research is done on the factors influencing attitude and behavioral intention of consumers using m-coupons. The present study uses the Technology Acceptance Model (TAM) as the basic model to analyze the attitude and behavioral intention of consumers towards m-coupons. A number of researchers have studied user acceptance of mobile technology and services such as the mobile Internet, text messaging, contact services, mobile payment, mobile gaming and mobile parking services based on IS adoption models. They found that usefulness and ease of use are very important factors determining user acceptance of mobile technology. The results of these studies confirm that in the mobile technology context, traditional adoption models such as TAM could be applied but they need to be modified and extended in order to increase their prediction and explanation power. Results of the study shows that Perceived usefulness, attitude and Social factor influence the behavior and intention of consumers in using m-coupons.