Electronics was the second fastest growing online shopping category by total dollars in FY2015, recording 23.1 percent growth, topped only by the home and garden category, which was up 26.5 percent.
Morgan also found that the majority of shoppers in most online product categories purchase from Australian Web sites, with an estimated 72 percent of online spend ( or around $27 billion) staying in Australia.
Categories in which a majority of shoppers still buy from international sites include books (including e-books); men’s clothing; jewellery and watches; and video games and consoles.
Meanwhile, more traditional retailers have been joining in. Morgan notes that five years ago “virtually all the money we spent on commodities online was via online-only stores” – but now 34 percent of the market is for bricks-and-mortar retailers’ Internet stores.
Another finding: Australians made a combined 1.34 billion trips to bricks-and mortar-stores, some 170 million fewer trips than five years ago Many are instead visiting retailers’ Web sites to research products online before buying from a store.
“The retail industry is shifting to an ‘omni-channel’ perspective,” Roy Morgan CEO Michele Levine commented. “Consumers don’t care about the battle between online and traditional bricks-and-mortar stores – for them, it’s all ‘shopping’.
“They research products online before visiting the store, or they touch, test and try on in-store before buying online.”
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