ZDnet has reported that Online Retailer growth in Australia is set to increase by 40% by 2012.
Commissioned research by eBay (which is owned by PayPal), suggests online sales in Australia will reach $33.8 billion dollars (an increase from $24 billion last year). Despite this growth, PayPal Australia managing director Frerk-Malte Feller indicated that Australia still lags behind other countries such as the US and UK when it comes to online sales.
"As Australian retailers struggle to build effective online presence, overseas competitors are taking advantage of the gap in the Australian market and are currently taking around 40 per cent of Australia's online retail spend,".
"There is a huge opportunity for retailers to capitalise on the growing online marketplace in Australia.”
"In the last six months alone the average consumer spent $1223 on online shopping, an increase of $130 from the second half of 2009."
Feller indicated that consumers in Australia were still concerned about
- Security of their transaction
- Shipping / freight costs
- And limited stock / poor options in online stores
This reflects exactly our philosophy behind eCommerce sites:
Security of transactions is paramount. Make the customer feel safe. Make them feel if something goes wrong, they know they are dealing with a reputable company.
Some suggestions:
- Setup a series of customer service (or FAQ pages), that outline shipping, delivery and return policies.
- Don’t hide your contact details. We have found adding your phone number into the header can help.
- Shipping – try and keep this to a minimum (or even free). If someone can by a shirt from your online store for $40, but have to pay $10 shipping, they may opt to go a local retailer and buy it for $39.95.
- Range. You wouldn’t walk into a retail store if it only stocked 30 items. Online shopping is no different, have plenty of product, with plenty of options.
