The soul of online retailing in Australia - internetretailing.com.au. Get serious about selling online!

Are Australian producers using the web to show the world their wares

I was reading an article recently on Retail Week entitled  Global online retail: The world at your fingertips which got me thinking. Do Australian manufacturers and/or their retail counterparts consider the web an important tool in promoting their products outside the borders of Australia?

There are some products that are unique to Australia such as our great wineries and their associated fantastic brands, crocodile products, kangaroo leather,our tourist attractions, Ugg boots, custom made jewellery and leather ware, Opals etc  to name a few. Is there a push by these manufacturers or their authorised retailers to promote themselves with .com or .co.uk websites that are built for foreign markets or at least have the ability to accept multiple currencies and offer shipping details to any corner of the globe? The first thing that may come  to mind are  the excessive freight costs, however on smaller items such as jewellery this is trivial. (Visit our recent article on Sue Rice Swimwear - this company successfully exports Australian made swimwear around the world)

The first thing that came to mind was Australia's shrinking manufacturing base, and the possibility as usual that export (and increased local consumption) could assist local industry.

Back to the article from Retail Week. This is interesting in that the English online retail industry which is light years ahead of Australia's fledgling online retailing industry look at us as potentially good customers for their wares because according to their statistics (see below) from Coremetrics, our conversion rates are just over 100% higher than UK customers.. an interesting snippet of information.

Australia

• Nielsen estimates that there are 11.5 million active home users of the internet in Australia, who make an average of 38 visits to the internet per month
• Conversion rates on Australian e-commerce sites remain high – 2.9 per cent compared with 1.4 per cent in the UK, according to Coremetrics

The Australian government has announced plans to roll out super-fast broadband across the country beginning next year. 90 per cent of consumers will be linked via 100Mbit-per-second fibre optic networks and the rest will get enhanced wireless broadband.

I can identify with these numbers, I remember about a year ago, I needed a replacement battery for my mobile phone. The cheapest deal for an OEM battery was from a battery specialist in the UK including freight (Yes, cheaper than buying locally), and I received it via Royal mail standard airmail 4 days later. So I beg to ask what is the reason that we cannot do the same thing to the rest of the world.. perhaps limiting beliefs?

The purpose of internetretailing.com.au is to explore encourage and debate these kind of opportunities facing Australian manufacturers and distributors, which are not effectively exploited.

Visit  bestofdownunder.com, to see how this New Zealand company is doing this already. There is also a good website australiangrown.net.au that provides plenty of information and advice on exporting Australian made products.

Another aspect of Australian made products is that they can be marketed as niche market goods, as is done by myaussieshop.com.au an online portal that brings Australian suppliers and products together and sells them online.

There is so much that can be done to promote Australian made locally and offshore and still remain competitive.