200,000 first-time online shoppers clocked in April as coronavirus isolation hits home

Australia Post reveals the rapidly transformed retail landscape as COVID-19 restrictions promote isolation shopping.

AusPost general manager Ben Franzi expected significant online sales growth to become the “new norm for ecommerce”.

Mothers day gift buying has seen online spending skyrocket, as hundreds of thousands of Australians flock to digital stores for the first time.

Data from Australia Post has revealed the rapidly transformed retail landscape, as COVID-19 restrictions keep consumers out of bricks-and-mortar retailers and into uncharted cyberspace territory.

Compared with March last year, online spending has increased by more than a third to $3.2bn. But those figures appear poised to increase substantially, with 200,000 households shopping online for the first time in April, and online sales last week up 86 per cent year on year.

As more households became comfortable purchasing online, AusPost general manager Ben Franzi expected significant online sales growth to become the “new norm for ecommerce”.

“We’ve had an influx of consumers into the ecommerce market, with an additional one million households compared to last year. Much of the growth has been sustained for over five weeks,” Mr Franzi said.

“We’re seeing very strong growth across categories - up 70 to 100 per cent compared to last year - in some cases. While I’m sure this will eventually soften as physical stores reopen, I’d expect this to remain around 30 to 40 per cent.”

Soaring sales were driven by several top performing categories and sub-categories. Gifts for mum saw department store sales balloon by 207 per cent, activewear up 199 per cent and fashion accessories up 175 per cent. Hampers and specialty foods also saw a sizeable increase - up 151 per cent.

Driven largely by retailers specialising in womenswear, fashion saw year on year sales increase by 99 per cent.

However, analysis from Citi Research noted that although department stores fell 8.4 per cent sales across March, this figure was propped up by positive sales at Kmart and Big W.

The shopping boom has forced Australian Post to scramble, diverting resources away from delivering letters to ensure parcel delivery, with two million parcels now being delivered a day.

Mr Franzi said along with high demand, other factors meant AusPost was “suffering some delivery delays”. This included social distancing measures at processing facilities and reduced capacity on domestic flights, which meant parcels were now being sent by freight.

Strong demand for online shopping has forced retailers to think creatively in order to ensure prompt delivery. Adventurewear company Kathmandu announced it would use Uber’s network of drivers in order to help fill deliveries.

Online retail therapy has placed a significant strain on courier services. Earlier in May, Sydney-based Sendle reported that parcel volumes were currently 40 per cent higher than the traditional peak Christmas period.