Amazon launched Amazon.com.au in Australia in the dead of night on December 5th. So more than a month down the line, how is the new marketplace faring down under? Needless to say, the the notoriously secretive company hasn’t released any tangible sales data but there has been plenty of customer reaction to the new offering.
Product pricing
One of the major criticisms of Amazon Australia so far from customers has been related to the pricing of products. Whilst Amazon itself is selling its own stock at its usually good prices, because the cohort of marketplace sellers isn’t huge (it’s still early days and they’re still recruiting 3P sellers) it seems that marketplace sellers prices are not as competitive as they could be yet. Of course, even on Amazon sites more developed than Amazon.com.au, its not unusual for marketplace sellers to be more expensive than Amazon itself. But this feels like a situation that will improve over time as more sellers join and competition increases.
Shipping times
There is some room for improvement in shipping times and costs offered by Amazon Australia. It goes without saying that Australia is a huge place so there are logistical problems to overcome that are unique to the country.
Free delivery is only available on eligible products sold by Amazon Australia (not available from third party sellers) and to get it you require a minimum spend of $49AUD. Free delivery takes between 3-7 business days to all major Australian cities and anywhere more remote is estimated to take 7-10 business days.
The cost of priority shipping (next-day) is $10AUD in major capital cities, while Perth and other cities in New South Wales, Victoria and South Australia have to pay $12AUD. Regional locations pay $20AUD if they need the product within 1-3 business days. There is also expedited delivery which means delivery in 2-3 business days for an extra $6AUD.
Missing features
As it stands, there are several interesting gaps in the Amazon.com.au offering. The most notable being the absence of Amazon Prime to Australian shoppers. As it stands, you are invited to express an interest in Prime to be advised when it does launch but it’s not clear when that will be. Obviously Prime is vital to Amazon because it improves customer loyalty and encourages shoppers to spend more over the course of the year so doubtless they’re working on it. When it does launch it will go some way to addressing some of the problems with shipping noted above.
And on a minor note, they haven’t activated the Amazon wishlist feature on Amazon Australia which is a shame. It would be a neat addition.
It’s early days for Amazon.com.au
Jeff Bezos is fond of saying “It’s Still Day One!” with regards to Amazon, by which he means that there is always stuff to do and changes to be made and, in the months to come, doubtless there will be many developments. But it still remains to be seen if Amazon will be embraced with the same enthusiasm in Australia as it is in other parts of the world.
2 Responses
We launched this week, we just couldn’t get it done in time for Christmas selling. We list using Channel Advisor and they only released the integration after the site had launched. We have only had a couple of sales but we weren’t expecting anything, as Dan mentions Amazon haven’t even started yet.
Even the simplified version of seller central has bugs, for the two sales we have had we didn’t receive an email confirmation. We checked and it is all set up correct in settings, we logged a case and support confirmed ‘I would like to inform you that we have troubleshooted the issue and you will receive the email notifications from now on.’ As with any new marketplace it will take time, even if it is an Amazon!
Similarly, we have only sold a handful of items, but the system has worked OK. One problem we had was that somehow they had input bank account details for us, which weren’t ours and it took ages to get the right ones in. However, it’s fair to say that the support team were very helpful.
I don’t know if this is true for all sellers, but our payouts are not released till 7 days after the latest estimated delivery date. And since, as an overseas seller, the only option I can show for estimated delivery date is 10-20 days, that means that payouts don’t start till 27 days after the order is placed. Not a problem for the few orders so far, but if volume grows, that’s a long time to wait to get paid.
The other element missing to date is Sponsored Products, which I assume will come at some point, but would be welcome right now to try and kickstart sales.
Also if anyone needs a local returns solution, try EziReturns who have just increased their coverage to Australia.