X-ray of eCommerce in Australia: a market with a forecast of €42,000M in online sales in 2023
We all know that Australia is on the other side of the world and that the water rotates counterclockwise, we also know that, right?
Despite being a country that is somewhat forgotten compared to the others, it has a competitive advantage and that is that it is a neighboring country of the eCommerce giant, China. This advantage has allowed it to take advantage of online sales by offering very competitive prices to its users. The wealth of the country and the widespread purchasing habits of users allow it to be a mature market, sophisticated like the United States but comparable to Canada in terms of size.
In 2022 and with the world already recovering from the pandemic, Australia reached spending on online sales of 39,570 million dollars (about 37,370 million euros), according to the data provided by the Digital 2023 study corresponding to the country itself, prepared by We Are Social and Meltwater. Likewise, it is expected that in 2023 revenue from online sales will continue to grow to reach 44,453 million dollars (almost €42,000M) and that in 2027 they will exceed 66,000 million dollars (€56,600M).
eCommerce in Australia: trajectory of a relatively new country
Australia has only a population of 26.31 million inhabitants, little more than half of Spain. But, of these 26 million, 25.31 million people have Internet access, so the market penetration is very high, 96.2% of the population. Compared to 2021, in 2022 the Internet user population grew by 1%.
For a country that was founded relatively recently (122 years ago), it has a growth trajectory far superior to similar first world countries. Being such a vast country with such a low population density, eCommerce has entered on the right foot and it is demonstrated when checking the data offered by We Are Social, which indicate that in 2022, 19.46 million Australians made their purchases online (41.7% of them used their mobile phones to do them), with an average annual expense of $2,033 (1,917.4 euros) per person.
And it is that in the most rural areas or towns farthest from the big cities, it is better to buy online than to go to the nearest store on duty (which may be a 2-hour drive away). In fact, the search for products and brands it is the fourth main use Australians make of internet search.
In addition to this, it is well known that social networks little by little they have been incorporated as another great ally of online shopping, so it is not unreasonable that the 23.2% of Australians use them to find inspiration to make or buy things and 17.6% use these platforms to search for products to buy.
These changes in the consumption habits of Internet users can be directly related to the high annual spend on online search advertising that the brands and companies of the country have done in 2022, which is located in 5.060 million dollars (almost €4,800M), with an exponential increase of 10.7% compared to 2021. While in advertising in social networks have invested 3,710 million dollars (€3,500M), which represents a growth of 11.6%, compared to the previous year.
What and where Australian consumers shop online
The main categories consumed by Australian users are: fashionwith an annual expenditure of 9,800 million dollars (almost €9,300M), toys, hobbies & DIYwith 8,520 million (about €8,050M), and electronicswith 6,230 million (out of €5,883M).
On the other hand, among the main motivators of online shopping we find: free delivery (56.8%), coupons and discounts (35.6%), loyalty points programs (34.6%), simple return policy (33.2%) and easy and fast checkout (29.5%).
As for the most visited online eCommerce platformsaccording to Semrush data, are the following:
Amazon Australia (over 41 million hits per month) eBay Australia (over 39 million hits per month) Ozbargain, with over 38 hits per month, is one of the most popular bargain hunting communities in the country. Bunnings, a chain of home hardware and garden centers, racked up more than 26 million page views. Woolworths, with more than 17 million monthly visits, is one of the main supermarket chains in the country. JB Hi-Fi, equivalent to MediaMarkt in Spain, has more than 16 million visits per month. Kmart, a department store chain, has more than 15 million monthly visits. Etsy, a marketplace that accumulates 15.07 million visits per month. Myer, a mid-range to upscale department store chain, with 12.58 million monthly visits.
cabbagesis the main competitor to Woolworths, ranking far behind with 12.49 million visits per month.
X-ray of eCommerce in Australia: most common payment methods
Although Australia has a type of buyer who traditionally preferred to pay for their purchases in cash, this payment method has fallen into disuse and only 1% of the population prefers it. Users opt for using electronic means such as credit cards debit and credit (48%), mobile wallets (26%) or bank transfers (9%).
It should be noted that it is important that online sales platforms offer various payment methods, especially the most popular ones. In many cases, it is possible that if the user does not find his preferred payment method when paying, he will completely abandon the transaction and go buy on another platform.
Shipping and logistics companies in Australian eCommerce
The logistics infrastructure in Australia is very well implemented for what we mentioned at the beginning, as it is a very vast country with very little population per square kilometer, this becomes a necessity. The country has several delivery service providers that operate throughout the country, some of which are DHL, UPS or FedEx. Still, Australia Post is the biggest of them all, with more than 12 million members in the country, managing to deliver 2.7 billion direct-to-consumer deliveries of online orders last year.
Photo: Depositphotos
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