By Aimee Chanthadavong
It seems that brick and mortar retailers’ worst nightmare of seeing a growing number of customers buying online is becoming more apparent after the world’s largest online retailer reported another strong quarter.
eBay said its fourth quarter ended 31 December increased 5 per cent to US$2.5 billion, which contributed to a full year revenue of US$9.2 billion.
Speaking to Retailbiz, Daniel Feiler, eBay Australia spokesperson, said it’s clear that there’s a customer shift from traditional shopping to online.
“More and more people are shopping online and while online shopping makes up only 3 to 5 per cent of total retail sales its growing fast,” he said.
“It’s clear there are online retailers that are tapping into this trend, whether they’re based overseas and locally, and are benefiting from that.. Australian-based sellers who do pay GST are growing 10 times faster than normal retailers and that’s because they’re competing online and they’re taking advantage of this trend of online shopping.”
President and CEO John Donahoe said in a statement that the positive results were driven by “customer focus, commitment to technology-led innovation and our operating discipline, which is enabling us to reinvest in growth”.
This is expected to put added pressure on retailers such as Harvey Norman, Myer and David Jones, which are leading a GST campaign to eliminate the $1000 tax-free threshold on internationally bought products.