Over a third of Australians are now buying fashion online compared to pre-COVID levels, according to Roy Morgan's retail & consumer trends expert Laura Demasi.
Between April 2019 and March 2020, online fashion spending was at 15%. This has since doubled to 35% by December 2022.
The fashion category now has the largest online spending market share compared to other non-food retail categories, ahead of electronics (now 17%), home & garden (now 12%) and beauty (now 11%).
The category seeing the largest growth in online spending since 2020 is beauty, up 348%, followed by home & garden (188%), fashion (141%) and electronics (91%).
Demasi said that online non-food retail spending overall has almost tripled since 2019, with the largest growth over 2020 and 2021.
“Now, an estimated 34% of total non-food retail comes from online, down from the peak of 2021 (46%), but still much higher than pre COVID (21%).”
Demasi said the numbers cement the permanence of omnichannel retailing, with pureplay retailers and omnichannel retailers holding 51% and 49% of total dollars spent in 2022. In 2018, the difference was at 66% and 34% respectively.
“Everyone is winning from the growth of online,” she said. “Omnichannel retailers have grown their share.
“They now have close to half of the total dollars spent online.”
According to Demasi, just 12 retailers accounted for almost half of all online retail spending (43%), with Amazon, eBay, and Apple leading at 8%, 6% and 4% respectively. Big W and Myer were at 4%, with Kmart and The Iconic at 3%, and David Jones and Target at 2%.
The other three were JB Hi Fi (3%), The Good Guys (3%) and Harvey Norman (2%).