By Alesha Capone
Point Cook has retained its crown as the nation’s top online shopping location.
Australia Post released a report last month, listing the top 10 suburbs and towns across the country for online shopping by volume during last year.
Point Cook retained the top spot for the fifth year running, with Cranbourne placing second, Toowoomba in Queensland was third, Liverpool in New South Wales fourth and Hoppers Crossing placing fifth.
The report did not include the actual numbers or total weight of all the online parcels ordered by shoppers in each area, but said that Point Cook’s year-on-year growth in online shopping volume amounted to 17.9 per cent.
Hopper Crossing’s year-on-year increase in online shopping volume was 24 per cent.
The Australia Post report stated that more than 67 per cent of Point Cook households engaged in online shopping during 2019.
During last year, Australians spent $32 billion online. Fashion and apparel remained the most popular items purchased, but as people began to spend more time at home as of March this year, purchases of specialty food and liquor, entertainment and items for the home office began to soar.
Australia Post’s general manager of parcel and express services, Ben Franzi, said that since the World Health Organisation officially declared the coronavirus to be a pandemic, the eCommerce industry had experienced an “unprecedented” rate of growth.
“In April alone we saw over 200,000 new online shoppers enter the market, and a million more people overall shopping online every week when compared to the average in 2019,” he said.
“This influx drove the number of purchases in the 30 days to April 30 up 6.8 per cent when compared to the 30 days to 18 December 2019, a traditional peak period which includes Black Friday and the pre-Christmas rush.
“Though we’ve seen early signs of normalisation through May, all areas of the industry are still up significantly when compared to 2019, suggesting that this new normal may be here to stay.”
Details: auspost.com.au/einsights
