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You are here: Home / 2010 / Big Retailers try to block consumers from online shopping

Big Retailers try to block consumers from online shopping

January 5, 2011 by Reporter 3 Comments

David Jones Ltd, Harvey Norman Holdings Ltd,( Gerry Harvey ) Myer and Target are among companies joining forces under a new retail coalition calling on the federal government to either impose GST on all goods under $1000 bought online, or remove GST from all products under $1000 bought locally.

Online shopping vs retiailers

More recently ,Wesfarmers( also running the coles group) has thrown its weight behind  this controversial campaign to scrap tax rules that allow Australians to shop on overseas websites without paying GST. Perth-based conglomerate Wesfarmers, also controls retail chains including the Bunnings hardware group, Coles and Bi-Lo supermarkets, Officeworks and Kmart.

According to watoday.com.au

Online retailer Michael Fox, who sells custom shoes through website shoesofprey.com, said big retailers should concentrate on improving their websites rather than blaming the GST exemption for slumping sales.

”For the last five or 10 years the big retailers, and Gerry Harvey in particular, have been saying that online retail is a dead end, nobody makes money in online retail, and they’re not going to invest in it,” Mr Fox said.

The Australian online retail market is set to reach AU$36.8 billion by 2013, up from a forecasted figure of AU$26.86 billion for calendar year 2010 according to PayPal’s ‘eCommerce: Secure Insight’ report from Forrester Research and The Leading Edge

Considering that many of these big businesses are themselves in the process of upgrading  their online business websites enabling  to sell more of their goods  online , this would certainly appear to the online business retailing community as a way to  stifle  the smaller competition by the big businesses. The consequences of this big businesses pushing on for this gst removal can lead to small local online businesses that could probably close down and run out of business and jobs.

Shopping_Trolley

‘There is still  a couple of very big retailers that are not joined this group which  include Harvey Norman competitor JB Hi-Fi, which has a strong online presence, Woolworths’ discount chain, Big W, and the Supre and Sussan groups, which compete with Lew family interests.

This group of companies is running a media campaign  which is targeted against small online retailers  and businesses ,which warns that failing to act will ultimately cost Australians jobs. This coalition of big businesses  also includes Book shops  and  australian designer  fashion stores labels . This has possibly happened  because now people who shop online have  been able to get books  and dresses cheaper  not only from local online shops but also overseas  due to the strong aussie dollar.

Consumers have embraced online shopping  even more  due to  the ridiculously high  prices  they have to pay at the Big retail  shops compared to shopping in other countries  or even online shopping. Prices in big retail shops  and grocery shops  have continued to be on the rise  in spite of the  population  rising  significantly  over the years which has not brought any reduction in these prices therefore leading the consumers towards savings and online shopping.

These group of companies  are just trying to  deny normal people shopping online good bargains that they can have online and instead of trying to compete with them they are trying to make it harder for them to trade online.

Ref www.digitalgrog.com.au

Mr Lew, who has an estimated worth of $1.49 billion, yesterday emerged as the main backer of the push to either scrap GST on goods worth less than $1000 sold by Australia’s struggling retail sector or apply the same impost to goods bought from overseas

According to the Australian Bureau Of statistics more than 1.3 million Australian adults purchased or ordered goods and services for their own private use over the Internet. This was a substantial increase from the 803,000 adults that did likewise in the 12 month period to November 1999.

Links :

Online Shopping Blooms

Filed Under: 2010, Australia, Australian, Shopping, Technology Tagged With: Online retailing, Online shops

Reader Interactions

Comments

  1. jackson says

    January 7, 2011 at 1:31 am

    harvey norman and myer just want to stall on time while they get thier own online stores in shipshape to exploit the online market

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  2. mya says

    January 7, 2011 at 1:36 am

    Look what happened to the big mining tax issue . They miners said they would have to close down because of the tax and people would loose jobs .All shams they instead are now employing more people making more money and spending billions of dollar on expansions .. Guess who wont get tax breaks anymore just because these already rich companies a
    have escaped paying more tax because of thier million dollar ad campaigns and making bigger profits…..Us poor people will get no tax breaks

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  3. terry says

    January 7, 2011 at 1:38 am

    shameful for big players to be obstructing small businesspeople trying to earn a living online by providing cheaper products and better service.

    Just because they are big does not mean they can force the hand of small business people and governments to their advantage

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