Online Shopping in Australia and The Hunt for Cheap Wines

Many studies have been conducted by both, the Australian Government as well as private organisations, on the shopping behaviour of the Aussies. All of these unanimously conclude that there is an increasing tendency among Aussies to buy products and services online.

Growing Online Shopping Behaviour

When viewed over a macro level, the percentage of individuals using internet in Australia is about 88%, as per the World Bank 2016 statistics (refer: https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/IT.NET.USER.ZS). This shows that internet is accessible to a vast majority of the country’s population.

Secondly, there has been a tremendous shift in buying products - online rather than from brick-and-mortar stores and this is fast becoming the norm. Why? Well, some of the reasons are:

• convenience,
• strong returns policies
• delivery even in remote locations and
• availability of a broad range of products.

The third notable finding is the growing use of smartphones for online shopping. There is a year-on-year growth of 52% in using smartphones to purchase products online, as per a study published in 2017 conducted by Australia Post and StarTrack (https://acquire.startrack.com.au/pdf/Inside%20Australian%20Online%20Shopping%202017.pdf).

For the wine industry in particular, where the online retail is still irrelevant in numeric terms as compared to other industry segments, there is a tremendous opportunity to shift the market trend. To quote the same study of AusPost and StarTrack, while 30% online purchases were for department and variety stores, only 6% customers bought specialty foods and liquor online. This leaves a lot of untapped potential.

The ecommerce space in the wine segment is dotted with wineries, wine marketplaces, multi-product sites and deals sites (including coupons and auction sites). Each of these sell wines, providing their own unique offerings of products and services. These platforms have created some level of depth in the online wine industry.

How Do People Go Hunting for Cheap Wines?

One of the behavioural trait commonly associated with online shoppers is that of finding the best deals. Wine shoppers are no different. They would do their bit to find the best wine offers. Some of the most common practices are:

• They dig around a bit visiting websites and checking what is the best being offered by them.
• They would sign-up for newsletters in order to know the latest updates and get exclusive deals that are sent straight to their inboxes.
• They even check for wine clubs and join a few good ones that are known for offering good discounts on wines, organise events and perform numerous other activities.
• Next, they check with bargain sites, including the ones that offer coupons. These bargain sites could be offering wines exclusively or with other products.

Role of Bargain Sites

There is a good chance that the same online wine retailer might be offering different deals through different websites for meeting specific business objectives. For instance, the use of best online deals sites is generally done to gain new customers.

A major benefit is that these sites help in creating more visibility of the online wine company.

Regardless of whether a bargain site sells only wines or a range of different products, these are visited by people of diverse interests and demographics, presenting a good chance to have new customers.