Recently released statistics from Australia Post show the nation’s ecommerce juggernaut is continuing to rumble along.
According to the Inside Australian Online Shopping eCommerce update published this month, growth in Australia for the 12 months to 30 June this year was up 31.8% year-on-year (YOY). For the first time, participation passed the nine million household mark at 9.1 million.
Just in June, 5.3 million households shopped online. Given there’s an estimated 9.84 million households in Australia, this means in June alone close to 54% of households engaged in online shopping.
As for how the states stacked up in terms of share of online purchases for FY 2020/21:
- NSW – 31.6%
- VIC – 30.0%
- QLD – 18.1%
- WA – 9.1%
- SA – 6.3%
- TAS – 2.3%
- ACT – 1.8%
- NT – 0.7%
Victoria experienced the highest online shopping growth, up 48.9% year over year. Helping to fuel this growth of course has been a very unfortunate phenomenon – COVID-19. Victoria announced stage four coronavirus lockdown restrictions in early August last year – and Melbourne residents didn’t exit those until late October.
More recently, the lockdown in Sydney saw shoppers flock online, with NSW registering 36% year-over-year growth for the period 27 June to 17 July 2021.
Overall, Australians were purchasing more across all categories in FY 2021 – some examples:
- Variety Stores – +30%
- Fashion – +27%
- Home and Garden – +37%
- Health and Beauty – +24%
- Hobbies and recreational goods – +31%
- Food and liquor – +32%
- Media – +23%
The full Australia Post ecommerce update can be accessed here.
It really wasn’t all that long ago that ecommerce was a bit player – now it’s a crucial part of many businesses and also helping them to survive lockdown. As important as a good website is, also important is a solid business internet connection to ensure reliable customer communications.
Trivia – the first (legitimate) ecommerce transaction in the world is widely attributed to the sale of a CD of Sting’s “Ten Summoner’s Tales” in August 1994 in the USA. More trivia: eBay Australia launched in 1999 and PayPal has been operating here since 2005.
