d store closures in the past few months, many Australians who had never shopped online previously have been forced to convert, only to find the experience to be simpler and easier than they had expected. This week, off the back of reporting Kogan’s strongest full-year earning results ever, founder Ruslan Kogan said that the retail revolution has just begun. “Once someone discovers the benefits of online shopping, I struggle to see why they would ever go back to the old way of going things,” Kogan said. And, according to figures released last week by data analytics website SEMrush, online marketplaces are bearing the brunt of this online switch – with searches for ‘online marketplaces’ growing by 46 per cent year on year. According to the data, Amazon Australia saw customer visits grow 90.5 per cent between January and July 2020 by 107 million visits, while Catch grew by 50.2 per cent or 32 million. However, the biggest growth was seen in eBay, with 289 million extra visits during the three-month-period, an increase of 57.2 per cent. “When Australians shop offline, they go to shopping centres because they can get everything they want and need in one place,” eBay Australia’s managing director Tim MacKinnon told Inside Retail. “When they can’t go to shopping centres, they go to the online equivalent, which is a marketplace.” A marketplace’s selection is incredibly important, MacKinnon said, since product shortages can be mitigated due to having a more diverse seller base and supply chain. If one seller is out of face masks, for example, a customer can keep searching within the same site rather than leaving entirely. A small part of a much larger industry And while some of these growth statistics are impressive, they need to be taken in context, said e-commerce strategist Nathan Bush. Online still only makes up a relatively small portion of the overall retail pie, and even retailers that run a thriving omnichannel operation typically see e-commerce make up around 10 per cent of sales. “NAB havs reported circa 50 per cent year-on-year online growth as an average for Australian online [sales] during April, May and June. Fifty per cent is just a pass mark,” Bush told Inside Retail. “There’s no doubt that during Covid-19, we had an influx of new online shoppers, and even if they hadn’t bought online before, they would be familiar with names such as eBay, Kogan and Amazon. The many years of A Current Affair coverage is being cashed in! “This gives those marketplaces a deserved open door for new customers who need to start somewhere.” According to a recent McKinsey report, the two biggest reasons behind customers buying online during the last two months have been that the item is in stock and located nearby. With millions of SKUs and accelerated checkout, marketplaces can easily tick both boxes, said Bush. “Retailers that are able to maintain a consistent and predictable supply chain will be in the box seat,” Bush added.“If they have strong relationships across that supply chain – especially with wholesales who are not selling direct to consumers – marketplaces are a terrific win – win option. This story appears in the August 19, 2020, issue of Inside Retail Weekly.