Recent reports reveal that Amazon Australia could delay its launch until early next year, following speculation the e-commerce giant experienced technical glitches close to its intended launch date of November 24th.
Lifehacker reports that Amazon Australia’s ‘soft launch’ (i.e. testing phase) ran into several technical issues, including errors calculating GST.
Speaking at the WPP Client Education Event in Melbourne, Kantar Retail’s Managing Director ANZ, Jason Mahoney, affirmed that Amazon’s “failed” launch was due to backend technical issues.
During his presentation, Mahoney mentioned that Vendor Central was incorrectly calculating GST on purchases – the company is frequently used by first-party suppliers to sell their products on Amazon.
Mr Mahoney forecasts that Amazon may launch in 2017, only if it happens in the next week or so. Failing that, he predicts Amazon Australia will wait until next year.
This may work to the advantage of some Australian retailers, who won’t have to battle the American-based giant for Christmas sales dollars.
Amazon Australia has remained quiet, and thus far not provided explicit details on their launch date.
