How Perceived Security Risk Influences Acceptance of Virtual Shopping Walls

Virtual shopping walls are innovative digital stores that can be placed in highly frequented areas of public transport, such as bus or subway stations. These walls resemble shelves of a stationary supermarket and allow convenient shopping with the smartphone combined with home delivery. The goal of the present research is to shed light on what drives widespread use of this store concept. Complementing traditional models of technology acceptance, this work examines the impact of perceived security risk with special emphasis on its moderating effect on the perceived usefulness-behavioral intention relationship. We find that the intention to use virtual shopping walls is driven by perceived ease of use and perceived usefulness, while perceived security risk acts like a barrier to acceptance. The negative effect of high perceived security risk, however, is mitigated by high perceived usefulness. This means that high perceived usefulness of virtual shopping walls can compensate for increased risk perceptions in a significant way, providing important insights for providers of virtual shopping walls.