The global retailer said it would offer free shipping nationwide for purchases over A$49 (US$37.26), with millions of products available from clothes to sporting goods to consumer electronics.
The move establishes the US$550 billion behemoth as an aggressive presence in the sluggish Australian retail sector, just as shopkeepers were hoping for a rush of sales over the important Christmas holiday season.
Amazon’s Australia country manager, Rocco Braeuniger, said in a statement the US company would “earn the trust” of Australian shoppers and, over time, create “thousands of new jobs”.
Australia has long been home to Amazon-registered sellers, but until Tuesday they were limited to sending goods offshore because the Seattle conglomerate did not have a warehouse in the country of 24 million people. This also meant Australians had to wait longer times, and pay higher fees, for shipping.
The company has now set up a massive distribution warehouse on the outskirts of Melbourne city, on the country’s east coast where four-fifths of the population live, and the company hopes to cut delivery time to as little as a day.
Under the free delivery offer, Amazon said it estimated delivery times as short as three business days in the cities of Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Adelaide and Canberra – home to half the country’s population – while shipping to remote areas could take 10 days.
Shoppers could pay a fee for faster shipping times.
Amazon did not comment on any last-minute problems from an order-taking trial which began on Nov. 23.
It said it planned to offer its rapid-shipping subscription service, Prime, in mid-2018, in a sign it is unperturbed by the geographic challenge posed by one of the world’s most sparsely populated countries. Australia is the size of the mainland United States, with one-thirteenth its population.
Australian retail shares have fallen sharply since Amazon confirmed plans for the country in April. Shares of top department store operator Myer Holdings Ltd are down 30% since that time.
Myer has been shutting stores and ramping up online sales, and last month it halved its three-year target for growth in sales per square meter. Its online sales leapt 68% in the 13 weeks to Oct. 28, but remained only a tiny fraction of its total revenue.
Shares of No. 1 electronics retailer Harvey Norman Holdings Ltd are down 7% since April, while smaller JB HiFi are off by 6% amid fears of competition from Amazon.