Supporting m-commerce transactions incorporating locational attributes: an evaluation of the comparative performance of a location-aware method of locations repository management

The growth in value of economic activity associated with e-commerce transactions is now a firmly established trend. Mobile commerce (m-commerce) has recently emerged as a significant and growing segment of e-commerce and is increasingly the subject of application development activities and the object of escalating levels of business investment. An integral component of many m-commerce applications is a repository containing location-related information (attributes) on service-providing or goods-producing organisations. Rapid access to an organisation's locational attributes is an important determinant of the level of service realised by m-commerce users of variant location. This article compares two methods of delivering transactional data associated with an organisation's locational attributes to m-commerce users: one method takes a straightforward, enumerative approach; the second method uses a proposed "location-aware" approach that avails itself of the locational attributes of both the m-commerce user and the organisational locations of user interest. A simulation-based methodology is employed to compare the two methods and evaluate the relative performance of the proposed location-aware method. Results suggest that the location-aware method has significant potential to increase the speed with which locational data is delivered to m-commerce users.