Home topics news Marketing News Marketing Australian retailers account for majority of online shopping spend David Olsen November 10, 2010 Australians shopping online spend more on purchases from local retailers than they do on purchases from overseas retailers despite the increasing strength of the Aussie dollar . Despite a recent surge in overseas spending, driven predominantly by the strength of the Australian dollar, most online retail purchases are local, a trend that is expected to continue as Australian businesses increasingly move online. Local retailers have been slow to make the transition to online, with major retail chains Big W and David Jones only establishing an online shopping presence this year, several years behind overseas competitors like Walmart. The Australian online retail market is set to reach AU$36.8 billion by 2013, up from a forecasted figure of AU$26.86 billion for calendar year 2010 according to PayPal’s ‘eCommerce: Secure Insight’ report from Forrester Research and The Leading Edge. The report found that Australians show a preference to ‘buy Aussie’ with nearly a quarter of Australian adults only shopping online with domestic websites. With the main driver of overseas shopping being a wider choice, rather than price, bringing into question the Australian Retail Association’s calls for the Federal Government to levy GST on goods from overseas retailers valued at under $1,000. Last week the Australian Retailers Association Executive Director Russell Zimmerman claimed Australia’s GST free threshold for imports created an unlevel playing field for all Australian retailers. “It is estimated that Australian consumers