Abstract
Hawkers are essential food providers in Singapore, with a large part of their business relying on dine-in customers. The social distancing measures adopted during the Covid-19 pandemic has forced rapid change upon the hawkers, as they can no longer rely heavily on dine-in customers. In order to remain profitable, hawkers have had to shift their business to food delivery and takeaways, relying on technology such as smartphone application platforms to solicit customers. While Singapore has a strong digital infrastructure in place to support the digital shift, hawkers, who tend to be older and less educated, might have faced difficulties in having to rapidly reorganize their business and integrate technology into their day-to-day operations. Using in-depth interviews with 22 Singaporean hawkers, I sought to document the experiences hawkers face when they had to rapidly integrate technology into their day-to-day operations. Several themes arose from the interviews. First, there was a near unanimous agreement that a realization that market needs were rapidly changing drove some hawkers to start considering technological solutions. Second, the barriers surrounding their adoption of technology revolved around four main themes: negative perceptions (of which one was platform-related and another driven by their social environment), a lack of an ecosystem, fatalistic attitudes, and inertia. To conclude, I provide some suggestions for policymakers and app developers to help integrate effective design which can aid the digitalization of traditional businesses among business owners who might not be technologically savvy, such as hawkers. Furthermore, the findings can help inform policy which can help prepare hawkers and traditional business owners to better cope with the push for rapid digitalization in the future economy.