Figures released by the Australian Bureau of Statistics this month show only six per cent of Australian adults bought goods or services over the Internet last year. While Internet shopping has been a non-event so far, there is every reason to believe it will begin to become a part of everyday life, and soon. It was only in the middle of last year that retail giant Coles Myer set up its first online supermarket checkouts, in Melbourne and Sydney. The appearance of such familiar, trusted brands will help to overcome the apprehension even regular Net surfers have about doing business with a computer screen. According to Paula Swatman, Professor of Electronic Commerce at RMIT, the giant that takes 20 cents of every Australian retail dollar is in a difficult spot.
Coles is caught in the middle.
Smaller retailers are also waking up to the threats - and possibilities. An Australian Retailers Association survey of 1500 members at the end of last year found the number of general retailers selling online would jump from 7.8 per cent last year to 58 per cent by 2002. The biggest single limit on the growth of Internet shopping is that only one in four Australian households are connected to it. But the Bureau of Statistics estimates this number will grow by almost 50 per cent this year. Ventures such as the ACTU's Virtual Communities project, which offers union members low interest loans to buy computers, will spread the Net into blue-collar homes.