Positive word-of-mouth for mobile location-based service retail apps usage

Mobile location-based service (LBS) retail apps, a prominent web 3.0 trend, offer customers reward opportunities when they physically walk into stores or scan the barcodes of certain products using mobile cameras. The purpose of our study was to examine: 1) whether m-internet users' characteristics were related to perceived multidimensional benefits such as conditional epistemic benefit, social self-concept benefit, emotional benefit, and functional benefit; 2) whether perceived multidimensional benefits were related to positive word-of-mouth (WOM) behaviours relative to mobile LBS retail apps. Data were collected from US female m-internet users (n = 901). Structural equation modelling was employed to test the proposed model. Conditional epistemic benefit, social self-concept benefit, emotional benefit, and functional benefit affected positive WOM behaviours relative to mobile LBS retail apps. Economic orientation, mobile affinity, and recreational orientation all had an indirect influence on positive WOM behaviours, mediated by perceived multidimensional benefits.