Aussies click off Amazon
Tech giant fails to appeal to consumers
DESPITE a multimillion-dollar investment and promises to change the way we shop, Amazon Australia is only half as popular as the country’s leading online retailer, a new study revealed today.
But experts warned Australian retailers could not afford to ignore the technology giant as even though it offered just 10 per cent as many products here as in its US store, it would not simply “pull out a white flag and give up” and was slowly gaining “mindshare” with Aussie bargain hunters.
The latest bad news for Amazon came in a detailed report into Australia’s online shopping habits from PayPal, which also revealed online marketplaces had become more popular than search engines, smartphones had taken over from tablets for online shopping, and three in four Australians bought items on their smartphones, sometimes while inside bricks and mortar stores.
The annual PayPal mCommerce Index, which surveyed more than 1000 consumers and 400 business owners, found online marketplaces had become the top shopping destination for Australia’s internet shoppers, overtaking individual stores. But while eBay Australia claimed the title of the country’s most popular marketplace, attracting 79 per cent of online customers, its rich rival Amazon attracted just 40 per cent of buyers.
And PayPal Australia managing director Libby Roy said the figures could be even worse for Amazon Australia, as the research came before Amazon kicked Australians out of its larger international stores.
“The research was complet- ed before Amazon shut down wn its US and UK sites and directected Australian consumers away way from those,” she said.
“That didn’t have an impact pact on these numbers.”
Amazon’s Australian website, which launched on December 5 last year, features ures roughly 10 per cent of the products available in its US store. The company restricted Australian access to its American marketplace after it was directed to collect the GST on all online purchases.
Gartner global retail principal research analyst Thomas O’Connor said there was little doubt Amazon’s Australian launch was “not that well received by the Australian consumer”. But he warned Australian stores not to ignore its progress.
“Retailers need dt to k keep p on the front foot and keep pressuring Amazon so it doesn’t take huge swathes of market share like they have in the United States,” Mr O’Connor said.