The retail landscape has attracted considerable attention in the past few years.
Now, according to the results of the research by PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) and Frost & Sullivan reveals – retail is at a critical juncture.
Furthermore, the research from the report suggests that businesses looking to maintain a foothold within the industry need to act now to integrate and adopt a new model of retailing to leverage the significant projected growth within this sector.
The online shopping expenditure in Australia is expected to reach $16 billion, a growth of 17.6 per cent from the $13.6 billion expenditure in 2011. This equates to 6.3 per cent of total retail sales, which is projected to reach $253.8 billion for 2012.
Australian online shopping expenditure is predicted to be worth $26.9 billion by 2016, with a Compound Annual Growth Rate (CAGR) of 14.1 per cent. This growth is likely to be stimulated by a number of factors including:
• the entry of more online retailers
• an increasing number of manufacturers going direct to consumer
• product and service expansion by current online retailers and pure plays
• continual growth in consumers using mobile devices to browse and purchase products anywhere, any time and any device.
In 2012, 9.6 million Australians aged over 15 will make online shopping purchases.
Over the next 12 months, 88 per cent (86 per cent in 2011) of online shoppers in Australia are expecting to maintain or increase their online expenditure, indicating that there is solid momentum in online shopping uptake.
Retail categories predicted to display the strongest growth over the next five years are the:
• clothing
• footwear
• jewellery
• fashion accessories.
These are driven by the proliferation of specialist online stores and traditional bricks and mortar retailers improving their online offerings. Growing categories include Food/Groceries and Alcohol – indicating a change within the consumer online shopping habits, where common place tasks such as buying groceries are increasingly being transacted through digital channels.
Source: 2012 Digital Media Research report by PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) and Frost & Sullivan.