The boom in online spending reached a new high in August, according to Australia Post, with the logistics provider calling it the “biggest month in Australian online shopping history”.

Online purchases were up 8.9 per cent compared to the 2019 Christmas peak, and up 5.8 per cent higher than April 2020 – the previous largest period.

And, unsurprisingly, Victoria led the way. The state’s restrictions, as well as Melbourne’s lockdown, drove online spending 170 per cent higher than the same period of last year. The rest of the country rose 85 per cent.

“In July and August more than a third of all Australian online purchases were made in Victoria, which speaks to the impact Stage 4 restrictions have had on the local retail landscape,” Australia Post executive general manager community and consumer Nicole Sheffield said.

Standout categories were food and liquor, health and beauty, and home and garden – all of which grew by 90 per cent or more year on year.

And while April saw the biggest influx of online shoppers recorded, with over 200,000 new households shopping online for the first time, the following five months have seen over two-thirds of these households remain online.

“Between March and August this year over 8.1 million households have shopping online, an increase of 16 per cent when compared to the same time last year, and almost a million of these households had never shopped online before,” Sheffield said.