Huge Potential for Local E-Commerce in Australia 21/6/00 Australian online shoppers are surfing American based e-tailer websites in rapidly growing numbers, but many are coming back home to local sites to purchase their goods and services, according to Nielsen//NetRatings. The first quarterly Australian data showed Australian shopping sites are only attracting 15.2 % of Australian home based Web surfers. In comparison 47.7% of Americans visit US based shopping sites from home. According to Brian Milnes, MD, Pacific, ACNielsen eRatings.com, "Australian Net users are using the big brand US sites such as Amazon.com and ebay.com to conduct their cyber "window shopping", but spending is still being directed towards local e-tailers such as www.dstore.com.au and www.tradingpost.com.au. Currently, online shopping and catalogue buying is not as developed in Australia as it is in the US, but an analysis of the data indicates the B2C model is alive and well here in Australia. We are at an early stage of Internet shopping development, with a very promising future." To be successful, Milnes believes that Australian sites need to move quickly towards building "brandwidth" on the Internet. "Shopping sites have to be easy for consumers to navigate and transact business. Entrepreneurs have to be very sensitive to the fact that surfers are extremely impatient, given the ease of a click. Unless you can make the shopping experience easy and enjoyable, they will head off somewhere else." Looking ahead, Milnes expects online sales to grow exponentially over the next 24 to 36 months. "There is no doubt e-commerce is only in its infancy in this country. Currently, the value of online retail sales in Australia is less than 0.2% of total retail sales. We are confident this figure will increase to more than 1.5% within the next five years. This represents real growth by anyone's measure."