Forrester’s latest report details the digital habits of Australian consumers – which technology brands they prefer to engage with, changes in mobile usage and new trends in online shopping.

Forrester has released its latest report on consumer technology trends, ‘The Australian Consumer Tech Stack’ by Forrester vice president and principal analyst James McQuivey and vice president and research director Reineke Reitsma. The report details the habits and preferences of Australian consumers engaging with existing and emerging technologies.

In a study of more than 100,000 individuals in 20 countries, Forrester found 68% of Australian adults shopped online for physical goods in 2018 – compared to 71% in Europe and 74% in the US.

“This coming shift is less mysterious than you might expect; this disruptive turning point in cutting-edge technology behavior is the logical extension of billions of years of evolutionary history,” McQuivey and Reitsma explain.

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The average spend within three months of online shopping was $649 for Australian consumers. 21% of respondents use their smartphone at least monthly to shop for physical goods online, and 11% use a tablet. However, 60% still identified computers as their preferred medium to ecommerce.

The report details defining trends between users of Apple’s iOS and Google’s Android smartphone operating systems. 42% of iPhone users use some form of wearable technology, while the same is true for only 29% of Android users. iPhone users are also more likely use their device to make video calls – 26% of iPhone users and 19% of Android users connect over video calls at least weekly.

In terms of service providers, Forrester found that 33% of smartphone users are with Telstra, 27% with Optus, 17% with Vodafone and 6% with Virgin Mobile.

Australians are turning away from traditional banking procedures when shopping online. Forrester’s research found that 82% of Australian adults have used an alternative payment method in the past three months – 61% used PayPal, 35% BPAY, 11% Afterpay, 8% Visa Checkout and 8% Masterpass.

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