Harvey Norman Tanks As Amazon + JB Hi Fi Soar Online
As traffic to Harvey Norman and Officeworks falls new kid on the block Amazon Australia has witnessed an 80% jump in traffic to their online site, also up was JB Hi Fi, Woolworths and K Mart,
In consumer electronics, JB Hi-Fi outperformed both Kogan.com and Harvey Norman, with online traffic rising 26 per cent month on month and 5.2 per cent year on year to 4.29 million.
Kogan.com enjoyed strong annual growth, with traffic up 15.5 per cent year on year and 12.0 per cent month on month to 3.5 million. However, Harvey Norman’s online traffic fell 11.5 per cent to 2.76 million years on year despite a 22.8 per cent surge month on month.
Officeworks’ online traffic also slipped year on year, by 0.2 per cent to 2.6 million, despite month on month growth of 22.7 per cent, according to Nielsen.
According to new Nielsen research approximately 3.8 million Australians accessed the amazon.com.au site last month, up 80.9 per cent from November, when Amazon.com.au’s unique audience was 2.1 million.
In December, Amazon said that first-day orders on Amazon.com.au were higher than for any other launch day in Amazon’s history, with tens of thousands of customers visiting the site in the first 24 hours.
Amazon was also the standout performer in terms of growth in customer traffic, but Woolworths, Kmart, Myer and JB Hi-Fi also showed rivals a clean pair of heels online as a record number of Australian consumers let their fingers do the walking over Christmas.
The most popular site was Woolworths.com.au, which had a unique audience of 8.1 million, up 4.9 per cent month on month and up 14.4 per cent for the year.
This was well above Coles’ unique audience of 5.1 million, which rose 9.3 per cent month on month and by 7.2 per cent year on year. Aldi’s unique audience rose 13.8 per cent month on month and 14.4 per cent year on year as 2.5 million Australians went online to check prices and opening hours (Aldi does not have an e-commerce offer).
The growth in Woolworths’ online traffic reflects the retailer’s greater focus on digital under chief executive Brad Banducci.
In the discount department store sector, Kmart soared ahead of rival’s BIG W and Target despite being a relatively late convert to e-commerce.
According to Nielsen, Kmart’s unique audience soared 22.1 per cent year on year and by 11.7 per cent month on month to 4.4 million, beating Big W (traffic up 21.7 per cent month on month and 8.5 per cent year on year to 4.02 million) and Target (audience of 3.5 million, up 24.6 per cent month and month and 8.9 per cent year on year).
In the troubled premium department store sector, Myer’s online traffic rose just 0.8 per cent year on year but 34.6 per cent month on month to 3.12 million, beating arch rival David Jones, where traffic fell 5.1 per cent year on year but was up 12.7 per cent month on month to 2.06 million.