Kim Stephens
December 13, 2013
The Age
A Queensland academic says the retail war between clicks and bricks has been exaggerated.
Australian shoppers have long been warned buying from international online sellers will come at the expense of our bricks and mortar retailers.
Nintey-Four per cent of us still shop in store and when we shop online, most of it is from Australian online retailers.
Either the warning has been heeded or the threat was a hollow one.
Queensland University of Technology consumer behaviour expert Gary Mortimer said the latest annual expenditure figures indicated just a small minority of Australians’ purchases were made through overseas outlets.
“Australians have spent a little over $14 billion online in the year to October, which represents a little over 6 per cent of total retail spending in Australia,” he said.
“Of that, domestic retailers continue to take the largest share of online sales, at about 73 per cent, indicating that 94 per cent of us still shop in store and when we shop online, most of it is from Australian online retailers.â€
However, Mr Evans said the six per cent online purchasing figure did not accurately reflect all sales, because some sectors were hit harder than others.
In some sectors, online purchasing was more like 20 per cent, he said, posing a far bigger risk to bricks and mortar traders.
But, he said, domestic retailers were careful not to paint a war equating to “clicks versus bricks”.
“Retail is driven by what customers want,” he said.
“We think the future involves a healthy mix of lots of different channels of retail, not a war between clicks and bricks.”
He said Australian retailers did rail against the lack of GST applied to foreign purchases, which he said made for an unlevel playing field.
However, Dr Mortimer said consumers didn’t choose to shop online at international sites to avoid paying GST.
“They shop online for convenience, to access products not locally available, or to take advantage of very low retail prices,†he said.
“Once we shopped from home using mail order catalogues. Today we use tablets and smart phones instead, but we can now shop on the bus, on the way to work and while waiting for a train – that’s why online shopping is so attractive.
“Australian retailers are finally catching up, responding to changes in consumer shopping patterns by implementing multi-channel approaches, including online.”
Dr Mortimer predicted a strong Christmas for Australian retailers, a sentiment echoed by National Retailers Association chief executive Trevor Evans.
He said Queensland retailers were potentially in for the best Christmas period of all Australian states.
“We think Queensland might be a better performing state than the national average,” he said.
“It might even come out as the best performing state.
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