Why do people switch mobile payment service platforms? An empirical study in Taiwan

Abstract

Although an increasing number of studies have recently investigated mobile payment service (MPS) platform user behaviours, the majority of these studies have focused on user adoption. However, user switching behaviour has been paid limited attention as yet. The current study investigates critical antecedents of user switching intention of MPS platform drawing on the perspective of the push-pull-mooring framework. The proposed model was empirically tested with 612 valid responses collected using on-line questionnaire survey in Taiwan. The results of this study revealed that user regret, alternative attractiveness, perceived complementarity of the alternative, and perceived network size of the alternative positively relate to user intention to switch. The most critical push effect driving MPS platform users to switch is user regret caused by dissatisfaction with system quality and information quality, especially in terms of system stability and visual attractiveness. In terms of pull effects, the improvement of alternative attractiveness and perceived network size of the alternative should be paid more attention, so thereby expanding their provision of complementary resources can be considered as an effective tactic. Furthermore, inertia is also negatively associated with user switching intention. Of all of the sources of inertia, uncertainty costs are a major crucial mooring effect. The performance of sunk costs still leaves much to be increased because of the insufficient user use and investment in the incumbent MPS platform. The findings will be helpful for MPS platform practitioners when fully comprehending users’ switching behaviour and formulating appropriate strategies to retain existing users while still attracting potential new users.