Amazon Australia could start selling products as early as Thursday, rather than Friday as previously thought.
An email republished by Lifehacker and sent to sellers who have signed up to use Amazon Australia’s marketplace, tells them to prepare to take orders from 2pm on Thursday- ahead of the Black Friday and Cyber Monday shopping events.
Retail consultant Scott Kilmartin, who has been in contact with sellers confirmed this to BusinessDay.
Amazon Australia could start selling products as early as Thursday, rather than Friday as previously thought (stock image)
Amazon Australia boss Rocco Breauniger- the retail giant is set to start selling from Thursday
‘It’s from 2pm Thursday, and my understanding is that it will just stay open,’ Mr Kilmartin said.
Since confirming plans to open in Australia in April, Amazon has signed up ‘many thousands’ of sellers, added Braeuniger, who relocated from his native Germany for the role in August.
Australians can already buy Amazon products from offshore, but having a warehouse locally cuts sometimes sizable international shipping costs, adding to pressure on retailers already struggling with the overheads that come from maintaining shopfronts and employing checkout staff.
Earlier this month, Australia’s top department store chain Myer Holdings Ltd cut its growth targets, citing weak trading conditions.
Rival David Jones recently contributed to the first profit decline in eight years for its owner, South Africa’s Woolworths Holdings.
In a sign of further headwinds for offline retail, Mr Braeuniger said Amazon planned to bring more services to Australia, from the outset, than it had previously flagged.
The site for Amazon’s first Australian distribution centre in Dandenong, Australia
Australians can already buy Amazon products from offshore, but having a warehouse locally cuts sometimes sizable international shipping cost. Above, the company’s fulfillment centre in Peterboroug in the UK
While Amazon said earlier that it would offer Australia its Marketplace service, he said the company would also run its own retail unit, ordering and shipping its own product.
He suggested Amazon would wait, however, before taking on Australia’s grocery market.
The firm took years to offer the service in other countries and ‘it’s really, really complicated to make fresh food delivery a great customer experience.’
Amazon, among the latest tech heavyweights to expand in Australia, has snapped up a sprawling nine-floor office in Sydney’s financial hub, with sweeping views of the Harbour Bridge and Hyde Park.
In August, it said it had picked a distribution warehouse in Melbourne, also on the east coast – where about four-fifths of the country’s 24 million people live.