Amazon launches online marketplace in Australia

With a quiet launch and only a few hiccups, the e-commerce giant said it had its highest first-day orders in launch history, according to local newspaper the Sydney Morning Herald.    Amazon began operations in Australia on Tuesday, with the e-commerce giant claiming that the launch resulted in the highest first-day orders ever seen, according to a report from the Sydney Morning Herald.
   Operations began quietly, with only a few hiccups in product placement and noncompetitive pricing, media reports noted. But Amazon’s statement to the Sydney Morning Herald revealed that orders were placed in all 23 online categories.
   “We are thankful to Australian customers for making this a landmark day in Amazon history. From early in the day, we experienced visitor numbers that far exceeded our expectations,” Amazon Australia country manager Rocco Braeuniger told the newspaper.
   Regardless, experts said that Amazon “had yet to flex its full retail muscles.” PlanetRetail RNG analyst Jack O’Leary noted in comments to the New York Times that the launch is still in its early days.
   “It’s Day 1,” said O’Leary. “As you see more sellers come to the marketplace, you’ll see a deeper assortment, depth, and price competition will only go up from there.”
   O’Leary said that at its opening, Amazon’s Australian marketplace had only a few hundred third-party vendors listing their products on the site, compared to the millions of global sellers that aid in Amazon’s competitive pricing in other markets.
   “As the number of sellers increases – and the company’s pricing algorithm takes hold – its penetration into the marketplace will improve significantly,” he said.
   While some Australians were not as pleased with the arrival of Amazon, others saw it as a business opportunity.
   “It really lowers the barrier for entry for small businesses getting started in e-commerce,” Tristan Swanwick, the co-founder of Swanwick Sleep, told the New York Times.
   Amazon currently has operations in the U.S. Canada, China, France, Germany, Ina, Italy, Japan, Mexico, Spain, the U.K, Brazil, Australia and the Netherlands.