Almost 80% of Australian consumers oppose reductions to the GST-free threshold on overseas online purchases, but any change will do little to quell their appetite to spend, new research reveals.<\/p>\n
<\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n According to a study conducted on behalf of MasterCard, increasing tax on purchases from overseas sites is unlikely to have much of an effect on Australian consumers\u2019 shopping habits.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Of the 1,250 Australians surveyed, 79% oppose reductions to the current threshold of $1,000, despite calls from major retailers such as Myer and Harvey Norman for it to be lowered.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Assistant Treasurer David Bradbury has said the federal government acknowledges the current threshold is \u201cvery high\u201d by international standards, but has rejected calls for an immediate reduction.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Even if it was lowered, it wouldn\u2019t slow the desire of Australians to \u201csearch the world for a bargain\u201d, MasterCard claims.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Of the online shoppers surveyed, 38% said a change to the threshold would have no impact on their behaviour, while 24% said the move would only cause them to buy online less often.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n According to David Masters, vice president of strategy and corporate affairs at MasterCard, price isn\u2019t the only motivating factor driving people to shop with overseas online retailers.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n While 86% of respondents said price was important, Masters says Australians are \u201cright at the forefront\u201d of the modern retail experience, where online shopping has become the norm.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n According to MasterCard, 12.6 million Australian adults have shopped online in the last 12 months, while two out of every three shop online at least once a month.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Masters also says Australians are \u201chard wired\u201d to want to shop locally, so local retailers need to up the ante.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n For makeup and clothing accessories, only 9% of respondents had a preference for overseas retailers. More than half said they were not concerned whether the vendor was local or overseas.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n The most significant bias was for books, with 16% of respondents saying they prefer overseas vendors.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u201cThe challenge for Australian retailers is to deliver where overseas retailers cannot \u2013 service, delivering a personal approach,\u201d Masters says.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n The Australian Retailers Association has a different take on things, describing the current threshold as an impediment on Australian retailers.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u201cWhile we don\u2019t expect overseas buying behaviour to change, Australian retailers have a right to be able to compete equally in the online space,\u201d executive director Russell Zimmerman says.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n But Michael McRitchie, chief executive of local online retailer DealsDirect, insists reducing the threshold won\u2019t stem the tide, declaring the current online market dynamic is \u201chere to stay\u201d.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u201cThe onus is on local bricks-and-mortar and online operators to lift their game in areas where they can make a difference,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u201cAfter-sales service, delivery times, product knowledge and being a \u2018trusted Australian name\u2019 count for everything in the online world.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n In addition to price, respondents said they preferred overseas sites for ease of navigation, and for offering better information about a product or service, suggesting these are areas Australian retailers need to improve on.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Almost 80% of Australian consumers oppose reductions to the GST-free threshold on overseas online purchases, but any change will do<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":58381,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11,22,23,1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47724"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=47724"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47724\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/58381"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=47724"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=47724"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=47724"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}