Australians embrace online shopping ahead of the holidays
Almost three quarters of Australians will do their holiday shopping online this year, continuing an e-commerce boom that started with COVID lockdowns.
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Amazon.com.au is putting small Australian businesses front and centre through their ‘Shop Local’ store throughout the Holiday season and beyond. Head to www.Amazon.com.au/shoplocal to shop products from hundreds of Australian small businesses.
Amazon is experiencing a busy 2020 as Australians have increasingly embraced online shopping, but that also meant the retailer had to move fast to keep both its customers happy and employees safe.
Amazon Australia’s director of operations Craig Fuller says the company has had to expand its fulfilment capacity quickly to cope with several waves of demand, so customers could stay safe and get their orders delivered home.
“This was our biggest year,” Fuller told The Australian.
“We opened our first fulfilment centre three years ago and we’ve now got four. By this time next year we’ll have six.”
He says the first panic-driven wave of online shopping was in April when customers rushed to purchase toilet paper and other essentials, followed by a second spike in July when Victoria went into lockdown and buying online became normal.
The most recent spikes were in line with Amazon’s Prime Day event in October followed by the global Black Friday-Cyber Monday sales in November which are increasingly popular in Australia.
“What we’ve seen during the past nine months with COVID-19 is people shopping online more because it enabled them to stay home,” Fuller explained.
“Take my father for example, he just wasn’t an online shopper, because of his generation, but COVID-19 created a need, and; he’s now committed to buying all of the grandchildrens’ Christmas presents online.”
The company’s consumer trends 2020 report describes an Australia which is embracing shopping online for groceries and essentials, and focusing on fitness, family activities and games, toys and electronic devices.
Fuller said an expanded range of products and increased speed of delivery is driving more Australian households to shop online.
“People see the benefit of online shopping when they know they can get their order conveniently delivered to their home,” he said.
“Amazon Prime members can get eligible items delivered for free in up two-days, and often faster in metro areas.
“Amazon has a strong focus on improving delivery speeds and providing our customers with a range of delivery options to suit their needs. This can even include same-day deliveries in selected areas with our paid priority delivery options.
“Amazon Hub, our parcel pick-up network, allows people to have parcels delivered to a locker, a newsagency or even some bank branches, if they choose not to have home delivery.”
The company is already known for disrupting the way distribution warehouses run but, when COVID-19 became a real threat in Australia, the already safety-conscious company implemented more than 150 changes in its operations globally to protect its employees.
“Amazon Australia was very health and safety focused before COVID-19,” Fuller said.
“But social distancing is an area we’ve been working hard on since the pandemic started.
“We’ve made changes to our operations so our people can stay 2m apart, exceeding the government recommendation of 1.5m. For example, we redesigned our internal layout because packing tables were previously closer together.”
Amazon’s in-house “Distance Assistant”, which provides immediate visual feedback on large screens by placing green or red circles around people who are socially distanced or getting too close, has helped to engage staff with the new protocols.
The company is sharing the technology as open-source software with anyone, to allow other businesses to create their own “Distance Assistants” using just a computer, a screen and a camera.
More team members joining Amazon this year has also meant changes to the way people arrived for work and when they worked.
“When the demand came we looked at how we could adjust shift patterns to support safety, including social distancing, while growing the team,” Fuller said.
“We looked at two aspects, we knew we needed more shifts so we added more people, but at different times of the day. And we staggered everyone’s arrival times to minimise crowding when people enter and exit,” he said.
Independent research commissioned by the company shows 71 per cent of Australians are doing their holiday shopping online this year.
The rate of growth, combined with health and safety changes implemented to ensure employee safety during the pandemic means Amazon Australia has had to be hyper-organised to keep parcels moving.
It expanded its delivery network with 10 new delivery stations, and accelerated the launch of the Brisbane site which it opened in September.
The extra capacity means Amazon Australia is well prepared for the final big spike of the year — the holiday season — and ready to delight its customers.
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Amazon.com.au is putting small Australian businesses front and centre through their ‘Shop Local’ store throughout the holiday season. Head to blog.aboutamazon.com.au/empowering-small-businesses to learn about some of the +10,000 Australian businesses selling on Amazon.com.au.
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