From selling to supporting – Leveraging mobile services in the context of food retailing

•New mobile services revolutionize the ways customers make decisions in the context of food retailing.•The various ways how food retailers leverage m-services in serving customers are explored and analyzed.•A tentative framework is suggested that provides the lens through which the opportunities provided by m-services can be uncovered and addressed.•Understanding the nature and stage of interaction is critically important in designing and developing m-services for better serving customers.

To safeguard their existence in the face of harsh competition, food retailers have shifting their attention from goods to service. In this development, mobile services have emerged as suitable venues for intensifying companies' service orientation. To address this phenomenon, the purpose of this study is to explore and analyze how mobile services are leveraged to serve customers better in the context of food retailing. With the help of 10 case examples the perspective is extended from food retailers' in-store activities to supporting customers' processes at the pre- and post-purchase stages. As a result, a tentative framework is suggested that captures the ways in which companies can use mobile services in their strategic quest to move from selling to supporting.