Australian retail industry leaders are behind the curve on technology adoption, according to Roy Morgan Research.
Roy Morgan Research chief Michele Levine said key decision makers are among the slowest to adopt new technologies.
“There is no doubt that technological change has dramatically impacted the retail industry over the past decade—as it has many other industries," she said.
"However in areas including information media and telecommunications, financial and insurance services, education and training, and even mining, two-thirds or more of technology decision-makers are themselves early or professional adopters.
“As a group, decision-makers in retail are only marginally more tech-savvy than their own customers. In fact, they are even less likely than the average Australian to use online payment or money transfer systems such as PayPal, POLi, or BPAY."
She said this may explain why the industry has been slower to adopt new technologies.
“Roy Morgan estimates over 160,000 Australians in the retail industry are involved in business expenditure decisions such as computers, telecommunications, digital programming and online services.
"However over half of the industry’s decisions on such matters are being made by people who aren’t themselves particularly interested in learning about or implementing the latest technologies until they become mainstream.
"From major department stores to local bricks-and-mortar boutiques, it’s taken many retailers a while to acclimatise to the new world—one in which consumers expect everything at their fingertips, with globally competitive pricing and simple, frictionless payment systems."
Across the whole Australian population (aged 14+), 19% of people are Technology Early Adopters and 18% are Professional Technology Mainstream — people classified by Roy Morgan’s Technology Adoption Segments as being among the first to adopt new technologies for personal or professional use respectively.
At the other end of the curve, 24% of the population are Technology Traditionalists and 16% are Technophobes.
Less than half the Retail Industry’s decision-makers for technology-related expenditure are themselves early (24%) or professional (22%) adopters of new technology.
Instead, they are somewhat more likely than their peers in other industries to be Digital Life (11%) or Older Tech Explorers (12%)—and over twice as likely to be Technophobes (15%).