In today’s day and age, you would have to have been living in a cabin in the woods… surrounded by bears… with no actual address, to have never made an online purchase. Even my Nana—who still uses cheques—uses online shopping.
Literally everybody is doing it.
So what exactly does that mean for the future of retail and how consumers make their purchases?
With e-commerce booming worldwide, Statista predicts that by 2020 Australian online businesses will see revenue growth of more than 15% and the number of online shoppers will reach over 20 million. That is a whopping 5% more than last year. With figures like these and huge companies like Toys R Us closing all of their brick-and-mortar storefronts, it’s no surprise that online shopping is set to completely overtake its former big sister, ‘going shopping’.
Based on revenue, Australia places tenth in the e-commerce market, following China, the USA, UK and Japan, just to name the front runners. It is estimated that Australia’s e-commerce market will grow by more than 6 billion dollars by 2021, bringing the spend to more than $35 billion annually.
While 47% of Australians are primarily using credit cards to make their online purchases, another huge player in the e-commerce game is payment methods such as AfterPay, PayPal, Zip-pay and other third party payment methods. This is making every purchase simple and affordable without the need for a credit card.
The ‘cashless’ society has completely changed the retail scope and fast payment methods are furthering the convenience of internet shopping. Not to mention, the customer satisfaction of having a purchase in your hands as quickly as the next day thanks to same-day shipping.
Australian online shoppers now have access to international sale events such as Black Friday and Cyber Monday, which are massive dates on the retail calendar with huge discounts across global retailers. In the last 3 years, we have seen a surge in Australian brands partaking in these sales to increase revenue streams from the USA and the UK.
When asked what was the most persuasive tool a company could use in ensuring customers didn’t abandon their cart at the online checkout the answer was overwhelmingly directed towards offering free postage. More than 65% of purchases made by Australians come with free postage.
With all the information we are gathering as the e-commerce market swells, the prediction that online will soon overtake shop-front as the preferred method of shopping is staggering. The global e-commerce market is set to reach $3.5 trillion by 2021. It is un-stoppable and un-beatable in almost every way.
Which is why by 2030 (if not sooner) online shopping will be king.
If you’re ready to make the transition from retail to another career path, check out our careers page here.
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