Understanding customer acceptance of Internet of Things services in retailing : an empirical study about the moderating effect of degree of technological autonomy and shopping motivations

The Internet of Things (IoT) represents a shift towards a digitally enriched environment connecting smart objects and users that promises to provide retailers with innovative ways to approach their customers. IoT technologies differ from previous innovations as they are ubiquitous, and encourage solutions to be intelligent and autonomous. In addition, in grocery shopping consumer interests change towards increasingly demanding shopping experience. Hence, the aim of the present research was to assess factors influencing the acceptance of IoT retail services and to investigate whether technological autonomy and shopping motivations affect the significance of certain predictors on intention. In a 2x2 experimental design, data from 339 customers of the UT campus supermarket were used to analyse the research model via multiple regression analyses. The results presented statistically significant support for the effects of usefulness, compatibility, enjoyment, social influence and behavioural control. Technology trust was of marginal significance in predicting intention. However, ease of use and credibility did not play a statistically significant role in determining intention. In addition, support was found that usefulness, enjoyment and technology trust gained significance when technological autonomy was high. Furthermore, neither did shopping motivations influence the perceptional effects on intention, nor did they correlate with autonomy.