Australia welcomed the world’s largest retailer, Amazon, in December last year and there has been a little unrest since then in the Australian market among shoppers and brick-and-mortar retailers. While Australian sellers are struggling to gain momentum, Amazon announced that it is blocking Australians shopping from overseas sites starting from the 1st of July 2018. This has left many sellers and shoppers in shock.
What is this change all about?
Australians have been shopping from Amazon US for many years now. However, from the 1st of July, they will be redirected to Amazon’s Australia website as the company announced that it will no longer be shipping any goods to Australian addresses.
Wondering Why?
You must think that Amazon is making a smart move to expand and establish its Australian market. The reason is quite different though.
With the start of the new financial year, there comes with it the new GST collection law, which puts a strain on online retailers, to apply GST on all purchases that are made overseas.
Currently, there is a 10% GST applied to purchases made over $1000. However, from the 1st of July, GST must be applied to all purchases irrespective of the price.
What is the impact on buying-selling?
Apparently, once the change is rolled out, all Australian shoppers will automatically be redirected to their Australian marketplace – which pretty much looks similar to the US website except for the fact that Amazon Australia doesn’t have a wide range of products like its US counterparts.
This is a huge disappointment for Aussie shoppers but this gives more opportunity for local sellers to plunge in and sell items that are not sold in the Australian marketplace.
Also, Amazon is planning to launch its next big venture – an international platform called “The Amazon Global Store” in Australia very soon, which will host more than 4 million items that were available exclusively on its US website. This will help Australians get easy hassle-free access to imported goods.
Is there a workaround to bypass the ban??
If you are desperate to shop from the overseas market, yes, there is a way. Although Amazon won’t entertain Australians in any of its overseas marketplaces, you can still get items shipped to Australia if you have the time and money.
While the ban is only for Amazon’s websites, overseas parcel shipping services from the United States are free to provide their services as before. So, give a local US delivery address for all the purchases and get it re-shipped to your Australian address through a parcel service.
A Deal-breaker?
People have different opinions regarding Amazon’s move. It is certainly going to lose business and pave way for competitors as shoppers would eventually buy from eBay and Alibaba if they are restricted on Amazon.
This is only a small proportion of shoppers and hopefully, they will bounce back once Amazon Australia has set its foot strong enough.
Let us wait and watch for the change to roll out and see what impact it has.
