A conditional e-coupon service for location-aware mobile commerce

Abstract

This paper presents the concept and theory of a conditional electronic coupon (CEC) service as an optimal wireless targeted advertising scheme to promote location-aware mobile commerce. The key idea of CEC service is to advertise stores conditionally, i.e., distributing ecoupons for a store to mobile customers only if the number of mobile customers requesting such e-coupons exceeds a threshold. Using the CEC service, mobile customers stand a good chance to obtain ecoupons from some local stores shortly before they go shopping there, and participating stores are guaranteed to make maximum extra profits in a statistical sense by issuing e-coupons. © 2002 Kluwer Academic Publishers.