From The New Daily:
One in two Australian retailers has failed to develop mobile shopping capabilities, despite massive and growing demand from consumers, a new report from online payment service PayPal Australia has revealed.
The figures come ahead of US ecommerce giant Amazon’s imminent Australian launch, and do not bode well for the domestic retail sector.
One expert went so far as to say the sluggish efforts to modernise reflected in the figures were “calamitous” for the industry, and would allow Amazon to “steal business” from both online and physical retailers.
In its survey of more than 1000 consumers, PayPal found almost three quarters (72 per cent) were now shopping or making payments on a smartphone or tablet.
And a growing number – 48 per cent – were doing so at least once a week. That’s a huge rise on last year, when just 36 per cent were shopping on their mobile devices more than once a week.
. . . .
In the 18 to 34 age group, a massive 89 per cent of consumers were shopping and making payments on mobile devices.
. . . .
Of the more than 400 businesses surveyed, just over half (51 per cent) had built the capacity to receive mobile payments – a 21 percentage point mismatch with consumer demand.
The survey revealed businesses consistently underestimated the extent to which poor online or mobile shopping experiences put their customers off.
For example, 37 per cent of consumers said they were put off by slow page loading. Conversely, just 21 per cent of businesses thought this would be a problem for customers.
. . . .
Mr Kilmartin, who works as an ecommerce consultant to local retailers, said whenever he meets with retailers, the conversation inevitably “gets skewed into Amazon”. And he said retailers were right to be worried.
“I definitely think they [Amazon] are going to open with a bang. They have that Apple-like buzz, and that will drag customers over,” he said.
Link to the rest at The New Daily
I’m not surprised, because big Australian businesses are next to useless. The mode of operation is essentially doing anything & everything they can to avoid actually giving their customers a good product.
Then an (inevitably) American-owned company comes in and blows them all out of the water. Perfect example is our TV. Commercial TV is pathetic. Poor, cheap programming (almost all of it reality TV), and most of it is ads. The go to cable service was ludicrously expensive (around $80 a month from memory).
Netflix comes in and offers a VASTLY better service, and suddenly commercial TV is whinging about it being unfair.
Same goes for energy. Australia could be leading the world with renewable energy (the public will is there). Instead, the government actively pushes it down, and is desperately trying to build more coal mines.
It is the modern Australia way. Opposing innovation, and then suddenly scrambling to catch up once its too late.
Australian retailers, where to start…
They are useless. Their main response to Amazon opening here is to whine to the Govt. to do something about it. One retailer’s “big” response is to open more stores.
I’d place more faith in the numbers if PayPal wasn’t the one doing the survey, as they would only be surveying those shopping online and needing a PayPal account in the first place.
Disclaimer: No, I don’t do PayPal, won’t trust them with my money until they are regulated like a real bank (I know people that had their PP accounts locked for months for unknown reasons – which PP would never explain. And for those that whine about how hard it is to get Amazon to unlock an account, PP makes Jeff look like a saint.
To paraphrase Jeff Bezos, “Your slow shopping web site, my opportunity.”