LiveArea, a Merkle Company, Study Shows Most Retailers are Scared to Fail
53% of US retailers avoid decisions due to fear of failure
A new study from LiveArea, a Merkle Company, and global customer experience and commerce agency, finds that the majority (53%) of US retailers cite a fear of failure as the biggest barrier to innovation. Retail decision makers who responded to the online survey say their top barriers to implementing new ideas are a lack of time (33%), company culture, and lack of ideas (27%), followed by legacy technology (22%).
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Key Highlights:
A Need for Enhancing Process Innovation
- Having an internal process is vital for spurring innovation: 47% of respondents say there isn’t a process in place to suggest new ideas for products, solutions, or features
- More than R&D spending, it’s about investing in people: 69% say they’re not investing enough to innovate and transform their businesses to meet customer’s needs
Pandemic Impacting Business Decisions
- More than half (56%) of respondents say innovation has become a higher priority during the COVID-era, while 44% say their business is making decisions at about the same speed as pre-pandemic
- 47% say the approval process for new products has been faster due to the pandemic
“The good news is today’s barriers to retail innovation are self-created due in part to cultures that traditionally undervalued agility and speed,” said Barry Fiske, Senior Vice President of Global Customer Experience and Innovation at LiveArea, a Merkle Company. “Employee hesitations to innovate are real and can be fixed without significant financial investment or rebuilding org charts.”
