Success or failure? The Click Frenzy on Nov 20 in Australia was met with mixed reviews with a major retailer calling the event a runaway success, while critics who bit the hype that it was the sale that would stop the nation were disappointed not only because of the Web site's crash but also the flimsy deals made available.
The power of online shopping could be both liberating and problematic if one is not as conspicuous as ever. Scanning through colourful and interactive catalogues of products and services spells fun as the new shopping flare. Nonetheless. shopping or just browsing, one should not let your guard down as there are those on the watch to do some online mischief.
Click Frenzy's website may have crashed due to the surge of consumers wanting to get first dibs on discounted products, and may have lost patrons along the way, but the real winners here were the retailers themselves prepared to serve online consumers.
With the Christmas shopping season about the begin, Australians would have an alternative way to purchase goods without bringing cash or credit cards. All they need is their photo ID under a new in-store payment system announced by PayPal on Wednesday.
The advantage enjoyed by online retailers based overseas over bricks and mortar stores insofar as Australian consumers are concerned may soon be removed. A plan by the federal government to collect the general sales tax (GST) for purchases abroad may just level the playing field for both kinds of retailers.
Australian supermarket giant Coles announced on Monday that it is phasing out its factory farming practices a year ahead of its promise. Keeping the pledge means Coles will free 34,000 mother pigs from cramped stalls and 350,000 hens from cages.
Global quality furniture retailer IKEA said on Tuesday that it will expand its store in Australia to 11 with the addition of two locations in Melbourne and Sydney. At the same time, the premier retailer announced deep discounts of up to 50 per cent covering 900 items to remain competitive.
To indicate their dislike of telemarketers, 5.4 million Australian households have since signed up with the national Do Not Call Register. The list just breached the 5 million mark since the registry was started in 2007.
In spite of an online sales campaign patterned after the successful Click Monday in the U.S., a survey released on Monday said that it will still be a bleak Christmas season for Australia's retail sector.
Some of Australian retailers will reduce their online prices for 24 hours on Nov 20 in a sales promotion called Click Frenzy. The promo is patterned after the U.S.'s Cyber Monday shopping holiday.
The Australia Post reported on Thursday that it registered an overall yearly net profit of A$281 million or a 17 per cent rise compared to a year ago. The significant increase in its income, while its counterparts in the U.S., UK and Canada are suffering due to technology, is mainly due to Australians' growing love for online shopping.
Four days after the Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA) reduced by 25 basis points the overnight cash rate to 3.25 per cent, two members of the big four announced rate cuts on Friday.
A survey released on Tuesday by Choice, a consumer advocate group, identified Harvey Norman as having the lowest customer service rating among large Australian retailers.
Like their counterparts in other global cities, Australians lined up on Friday morning to buy Apple's iPhone 5 officially launched last week but made available only beginning Sept 21 in retail outlets in selected countries.
While Australian retail giant Harvey Norman is one of the leading voices calling for lowering of the general sales tax on items purchased overseas, the company's own chief executive, who is also the owner's wife, ironically buys from online shops abroad to save money.
Weak consumer spending continues to batter Australia's retail sector, causing a 40 per cent slump in profits for David Jones and some of the leading local retailers to considering moving out of the country.
While Australians prefer home-grown food over imported ones, the case is not true for furniture, health and beauty items, clothes, hardware and household appliances which Aussies prefer to buy imported ones due to lower cost and better value.
Consumer advocate Choice is pushing for better country of original labelling after a review found that the two supermarket giants in Australia have less locally made products on its shelves.
Australia's retail sector showed unexpected poor sales in July and broadly trickling down to the fragile profits of businesses still gaping for low demand for exports in Europe.
Constantly competing for new sustainable and environment-friendly fuels, the Shell Group focused all efforts on a prominent goal of attaining corporate efficiency by means of sustaining the environment at no matter the costs?
Perth residents trooped to shopping malls and other retail outlets on Sunday for the first time as Western Australia's amended Sunday trading laws took effect on Aug 26.
Consumer groups are pushing for larger prints on unit prices of grocery items for shoppers to benefit the most from comparative unit prices that supermarkets post based on a common weight, volume or number.
The Catholic Church is again in another controversy. This time the ownership of a billion-dollar German media company that has been reported to be selling some pornographic materials, which is against its philosophy and teachings.
Creations of leading American fashion designer Ralph Lauren would still be available despite the end of a 23-year licence deal between the fashion brand and Australian accessories outfit OrotonGroup in June 2013.
A National Australia Bank (NAB) official said on Tuesday that in the next few years, Australian banks would rely less on wholesale funding and instead focus on deposits as the main source of their lending operations.
Due to dining and retail establishments push to scrap the penalty rate for Sunday work, unions have launched a counter offensive by launching the Save our Aussie Weekends campaign.
Dairy farmers from Queensland and New South Wales (NSW) are not taking the sides of either Coles or Woolworths in the two supermarket giants' price war. They instead urged on Sunday the boycott of the two supermarkets' branded milk at the ongoing Ekka, Queensland's largest public event which attracts over 400,000 visitors.
Coles gained the upper hand in its battle for the number position with Woolworths as the number one supermarket by reporting on Thursday a yearly sales growth of 6.1 per cent to $33.7 billion.
A UBS forecast that banks in Australia would axe several thousands of positions over the next two years was validated by a National Australia Bank (NAB) executive on Monday.
The ongoing strike and barricade of Coles warehouse in Somerton, Melbourne entered its third week on Monday as the industrial dispute goes back to Fair Work Australia (FWA).
