Inside Australian Online Shopping
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Inside eCommerce Industry Contents Australian Report Online State of eCommerce Shopping Online shopping trends Variety Stores Fashion & Apparel Home & Garden Health & Beauty Hobbies & Recreational Goods Specialty Food & Liquor The delivery 2021 experience About this report Contents Welcome to the sixth edition of the Inside Australian Online Shopping Industry Report, an in-depth study State of into consumer online buying eCommerce behaviour and trends. Online The report has been prepared using 2019 and shopping 2020 deliveries data recorded by the Australia trends Post Group, unless otherwise stated. Commentary in this report relating to online Variety shopping is based on an extrapolation of this data. Stores Year-on-year (YOY) growth numbers are based on actual or extrapolated transaction volumes. Fashion & Apparel For more eCommerce insights, access our monthly market updates at auspost.com.au/einsights Home & Garden Health & Beauty Hobbies & Recreational Goods Specialty Food & Liquor The delivery experience 2 Inside Australian Online Shopping 2021 Contents Contents Foreword 4 Online shopping trends 14 Specialty retail categories 29 Sustained participation 15 Australian retailer perspective 30 State of Executive summary 5 Shopping intent 16 Variety Stores 31 eCommerce Australia's new online shoppers 18 Fashion & Apparel 34 Home & Garden 37 State of eCommerce 6 A closer look at April 19 Online Health & Beauty 40 shopping Australia's regular online shoppers 20 trends A monumental year of change 7 Hobbies & Recreational Goods 43 International supply chains disrupted 22 Phenomenal eCommerce growth 8 Specialty Food & Liquor 46 eCommerce across the globe 23 Variety The lockdown effect 9 Stores Aussies shopped around 24 Shopping frequency 10 The buy local trend 25 The delivery experience 49 Online shopping participation 11 How Aussies buy online 27 New eCommerce priorities 50 Fashion Locations of Australia's 13 & Apparel biggest shoppers Payment methods 28 Preferred delivery points 52 Home Methodology 54 & Garden References 55 Health & Beauty Hobbies & Recreational Goods Specialty Food & Liquor The delivery experience 3 Inside Australian Online Shopping 2021 Foreword Contents 31 March 2021 Welcome to the 2021 Australia Post State of eCommerce Industry report. eCommerce A year unlike any other before it, Beyond supporting businesses, Whether it was helping a business to scale their 2020 was not only full of tremendous the local Post Office became more operations to meet increased demand, or helping Online a small business come online for the first time shopping trends change for how we live, work and important than ever before; staying through our MyPost Business platforms, it has interact, it also altered the trajectory open and acting as a vital local hub been a privilege to use the scope of our national of the Australian eCommerce industry. for Australians, particularly in rural processing and delivery network to deliver Variety and regional Australia, helping for Australia. Stores As social distancing, border closures and communities stay connected. Beyond supporting businesses, the local Post lockdowns became commonplace, Australians Office became more important than ever before; turned online for the things they needed. And they staying open and acting as a vital local hub for Fashion did so in record numbers with over four in five Border restrictions, reduced flights and in some Australians, particularly in rural and regional & Apparel Australian households (almost 9 million) making instances the closure of some international lanes Australia, helping communities stay connected. an online purchase at some point during the year. created an additional barrier for shoppers looking Included in that number was more than 1.3 million to purchase from overseas, and ‘buy local’ trends As the industry begins to settle and find a new normal, it will be important retailers take the Home households that purchased in 2020 that did not and hashtags gained popularity as shoppers & Garden buy online in 2019. looked to support local businesses through the opportunity to re-group and look to the year ahead. difficult times. I trust business owners can use the insights in This increased engagement resulted in online this report, in conjunction with the learnings they purchases in 2020 growing by 57% YOY, and Though 2020 was a year full of challenges, have gained over the past year, to inform future Health & Beauty Australians spending a record $50.46 billion it was also one brimming with opportunity for investment, improve resilience and strengthen online.1 As a percentage of total retail, online Australian retailers. While businesses had to pivot their business – ensuring they are well placed to sales accounted for 16.3%2 – a figure we did not early and quickly change how they continued take advantage of future opportunities. expect to see until about 2023. While this sharp to serve their customers, research conducted Hobbies & Recreational acceleration in the eCommerce market brought by Deloitte Access Economics found those Goods Australians in line with where our international that invested in eCommerce were significantly peers such as the United States and the United buffered from the impacts of COVID-19, limiting Kingdom were pre-pandemic, those markets have overall revenue losses to 7% between March and Specialty Rodney Boys Food & now also accelerated, and the Australian market August 2020.3 Liquor still has some ground to cover. During the challenges, Australia Post continued to Acting Group Chief As local eCommerce grew strongly, significant support Australian businesses, and demonstrated Executive Officer and international disruption led to a contraction in agility to help those businesses find new ways to Managing Director The delivery experience cross-border eCommerce. reach their customers. Australia Post 4 Inside Australian Online Shopping 2021 Executive summary Contents 31 March 2021 The events of 2020 and ongoing Online shopping was initially driven by necessity The events of 2020 gave rise to a sudden and effects saw a shift in the industry while bricks and mortar stores were closed, and permanent shift in buyer behaviour. Shoppers’ State of this habit became ingrained even as restrictions habits have changed and while they are more eCommerce that we could never have foreseen. eased. Other factors were also at play, such as engaged than ever, they are also more comfortable One thing is clear, the resulting social distancing and the shift to working from buying from a broader cross-section of retailers home, adding to the sustained engagement and categories. This poses a question for retailers: Online transformation has brought about with online. how can they improve the experience they deliver shopping a significant step-change for for their customers and by extension, continue to trends be competitive? eCommerce in Australia. Each month saw an average of In my view, it needs to be a collaborative effort. Variety Last year, 9 million Australian households shopped 1 million additional households A seamless end-to-end experience is critical, Stores online – that’s 82% of all households. We saw this buying online when compared to and the power of partnerships between retailers, play out in real-time, and you’ll see as you read supply chains, and delivery partners is even through this report the exciting implications of this 2019. This can be attributed to more important, in order to continue meeting the as we plan for the months and years ahead. two key factors: regular shoppers evolving needs of our customers. Fashion & Apparel At the height of the first COVID-19 wave, the buying more frequently and new Through the early months of 2021 we’ve continued national lockdown saw online purchase growth shoppers entering the market for to see around 5 million households shopping rise to a level which had not been seen before online each month. While the effects of the outside of a key sales period. Then again, during the first time. pandemic may still be felt for some time, business Home & Garden Victoria’s second wave, a new record was set and consumer confidence continues to improve. eclipsing the initial growth numbers. More than 1.3 million new households entered We’ve reached a new level, and online has never been more in focus. These events set a new baseline for the remainder the market last year, with the largest cohort of of the year. Although restrictions eased and these shopping online for the first time in April. Health online shopping activity softened, volumes never To understand their future buying behaviour, & Beauty returned to the pre-pandemic level. This was we tracked them through to December. Had they evident in November when the combination of bought online out of pure necessity, or would the Cyber Sales and people shopping early for a pattern start to form? The data revealed that Hobbies & almost half of this new contingent continued to Recreational Christmas saw the month become the biggest Goods in Australian online shopping history. buy online on a frequent basis (in at least three of the months that followed April). Many of the new shoppers had converted into regular shoppers. Specialty Food & Liquor Ben Franzi General Manager, Parcel & Express Services The delivery experience Australia Post 5 Inside Australian Online Shopping 2021 State of Contents eCommerce State of eCommerce Online shopping trends Variety Stores Fashion & Apparel Home & Garden Health & Beauty Hobbies & Recreational Goods Specialty Food