Online spending on online marketplaces Australia 2015-2024

Spending on goods on online marketplaces in Australia surged over the last decade, reaching almost 16 billion Australian dollars in 2024. This marked a more than tenfold increase in expenditure compared to the start of the given period in 2015.

Diverse generational shopping preferences

In 2024, online marketplaces emerged as the dominant category for e-commerce spending in Australia, outpacing other sectors. The country’s Gen Z shoppers tended to gravitate towards women’s fashion, homewares, and beauty products when shopping on these platforms, with almost 45 percent of the generational cohort making purchases in the women’s fashion category. Millennials, on the other hand, favored the hobbies and recreational goods segment when buying from online marketplaces, followed by homewares and women’s fashion. The older generations were more inclined towards ordering home items, consumer electronics, books, stationery, and multimedia products.

Popular online marketplaces

U.S. e-commerce platforms Amazon and eBay are the frontrunners in Australia’s online marketplace landscape. Nonetheless, recently, Amazon has pulled ahead due to its appealing fast delivery, ease of purchase, and good quality products, with the company bringing in revenue from its Australian online store segment of over 1.93 billion U.S. dollars in 2024. Conversely, eBay’s popularity has wavered, as Chinese online-only platforms Temu and Shein increasingly challenge its market share. Temu quickly cemented itself in Australia’s online marketplace sector, despite its entrance in 2023, owing to its highly discounted products. In 2024, the Temu shopping app took the crown as the country’s most downloaded online marketplace app, vastly outperforming Amazon and eBay.