The head of the Australian National Retailers Association, Margy Osmond, has admitted Gerry Harvey and Solomon Lew's high-profile campaign denouncing the GST-free threshold for offshore online purchases pushed more consumers to online shopping.
Speaking at a Salmat Digital media event, Osmond said: “We saw some unfortunate publicity surrounding the whole online issue which stimulated behaviours in people who never bought anything online. There's no doubt a lot of that controversy led to more people experiencing the online world.”
In January 2011, a consortium of retail industry leaders including Gerry Harvey and Solomon Lew launched an ad campaign to lobby for a lowering of the GST-free threshhold on overseas online purchases. Currently, merchandise valued under $1,000 purchased on offshore e-tail sites are exempt.
A ferocious public backlash against the retailers involved in the push followed the campaign.
Osmond said the push for a lower threshhold was not about hitting consumers' hip pockets. She said it's a complex issue which also needs to take into account factors such as the cost of improving government infrastructure in handling the increased volume of deliveries. Osmond named the UK and Canada as two markets with a very low tax-free threshhold.
Yesterday, the Australian Bureau of Statistics' seasonally adjusted retail sales figures for April showed it was down 0.2%.
Osmond said: “There's a fair amount of doom and gloom in the discussion about retail but I do believe there's a genuine bright future for the industry, filled with innovation. A lot of big retailers are working very hard to be as innovative as they can be for consumers in this space.”
An AIMIA report released today found 83% of retailers plan to invest more in online retailing in the next three years. According to the study, 75% of retailers now have an online presence while 43% have an e-commerce platform.
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