Amazon have at last fully launched Amazon Australia and for the first time our cousins down under can shop from their own Amazon country site. The site sneaked out some time shortly after midnight Australian time on Tuesday the 5th of December, so the marketplace be live as shoppers wake up today.
There’s actually surprisingly little to report on bar the fact that the online retailing giant and marketplace is live and that it’s already riling local offline retailer who don’t relish the competition. That’s no different to anywhere else in the world however where the Internet has disrupted the high street but it will be interesting to watch how much impact Amazon has, how quickly they gain traction and how offline retailers react to the Amazon.
Prices initially don’t appear to have set Aussie hearts beating, but then again off line retailers have known that Amazon is coming and so soon after Black Friday many products have been heavily discounted anyway. Whilst Amazon have always been keep to offer competitive pricing, it’s their other services to make shopping as frictionless as possible that really set them aside – the speed of delivery and convenience being the main differentiator which Australians can now road test.
Amazon have already rolled out an Australian version of their latest TV advert to promote the site.
Where’s Prime?
Prime hasn’t yet launched in Australia but there’s little doubt that it will roll out in the near future. Amazon know full well that customers who subscribe to Prime become much more loyal shoppers than non-Prime customers so expect to see this soon.
It’s also worth mentioning that The Grand Tour Season 2 starts this Friday, the 8th of December and Australians (who had their own version of Top Gear when Clarkson, Hammond and May were on the UK show) will doubtless be keen to tune in on the action.
Sell on Amazon Australia
When we first wrote about Amazon launching in Australia there were three main hurdles that sellers needed to overcome – multichannel support, shipping and banking.
Banking is now resolved with at least a couple of currency conversion companies offering virtual Australian bank accounts. Shipping will doubtless become easier once Amazon launch FBA in Australia. What may deter some retailers from launching on Amazon Australia immediately (especially before Christmas) is the lack of multichannel support. There’s nothing to stop retailers manually listing products and downloading orders but frankly that’s a bit last century and a pain – we’d expect multichannel integration to be launched by the main players pretty swiftly as it’s a familiar platform so there shouldn’t be any unforeseen tech issues.
If you want to sell on Amazon Australia, at least put the first steps in place and open an account – You can do that on the Amazon Australia sign up page.
