Mobile users set the tone for $2.8bn record Christmas rush

Today ­is expected to set records for online and mobile Christmas shopping across the country.

Kerryn Dale runs Collections Jewellery from her Sydney home. ‘This year, it started two weeks ago. I was ­absolutely flooded with orders,’ she says of the move to mobiles. Picture: Britta Campion

This holiday season is shaping up to be a very mobile Christmas, as shoppers shut down their laptops and pick up their phones to buy presents online, with today ­expected to set records for online and mobile shopping across the country.

It will be mobile devices and smartphones that lead the charge as the purchasing platform of choice. The number of gifts bought via mobile is predicted to be 20 per cent higher than on the busiest day last year.

Jooman Park, country manager of eBay, has forecast today will set records for online and ­mobile shopping. He expects his site to attract more than 2.6 million visits, with more than 520,000 items sold. He said the dramatic shift to mobile this Christmas showed just how ­ingrained online shopping had become.

“Australia is leading the world when it comes to mobile commerce and we have become ­entirely proficient at browsing, comparing prices and making purchasing decisions with confidence on the go,’’ he said.

eBay believes such is the ­penetration of mobile online ­shopping among Australian consumers that 55 per cent of people will be shopping from their couch, with more than 10 per cent of 25 to 34-year-olds admitting to have shopped while in the bathroom.

Australia Post chief executive Ahmed Fahour knows all about the flood of online shopping that will soon flood his business. Australia Post has employed more than 3000 extra staff to deal with the millions of packages ­entering Australia and crossing from city to city in the rush before Christmas Day.

“When I started my job in 2010, I remember in the peak month, November 2009, Australia Post was handling about 700,000 parcels a day, roughly; last month it was closer to an average per day of between 1.5 million and 1.7 million parcels per day,’’ he told The Australian.

He said he believed many people had done their online Christmas shopping in November, but the first few weeks of December would see traffic peak. “We just get all hands on deck because it’s manic before Christmas,’’ he said.

The Australian Retailers ­Association anticipates that Australians will spend a total of about $2.8 billion online this Christmas, with about 25 per cent of those transactions ­ on a mobile device.

Kerryn Dale, a former project manager for a software company who turned her back on her 11-year career to set up an online jewellery store, Collections Jewellery, is at the pointy end of this year’s mobile Christmas.

She is bracing for thousands of orders — and packages to stuff with rings, bracelets, earrings and necklaces — in the next few weeks. “I would say this year, it started two weeks ago. I was ­absolutely flooded with orders,’’ Ms Dale said from her Sydney home where her business, only four years old, is turning over more than $300,000 a year from its website and selling to customers across the breadth of Australia as well as internationally.

“A lot of people are online shopping this time of the year that wouldn’t normally be online shopping, and so a lot of customers are gained in this period and that ­momentum probably carries through for us until the end of January.’’

She said her data showed that at this time of year, just before Christmas, about 80 per cent of her orders came from shoppers using mobiles. “A lot of people are shopping at night, in their downtime, on the mobile and it’s super convenient,’’ she said.

When it comes to the most ­addicted online shoppers, regional and rural Australia put the rest of the nation to shame.

“The biggest area we are seeing growth, really massive growth, is in regional and rural communities,’’ Mr Fahour said, “and citizens in these regions are buying three times more items per capita than somebody living in the metropolitan area.’’

He said Australia Post data ­revealed that regional centres such as Toowoomba, Cairns and Mackay were home to some of the biggest online shoppers.