Health and beauty, together with food and liquor and home and garden, were the standout categories for online sales in July and August, reveals Australia Post.
Growth in these key sectors passed 90 per cent over the two-month period, says the national postal service.
August was also decreed to be “the biggest month in Australian online shopping history”.
Online purchases increased 8.9 per cent by contrast to the 2019 Christmas peak and surged 5.8 per cent higher than April this year.
Victoria was at the forefront of the online sales boom – up 175 per cent in July and August – by contrast to the same time last year.
According to Nicole Sheffield, executive general manager community and consumer at Australia Post: “In July and August, more than a third of all Australian online purchases were made in Victoria.
“Between March and August this year over 8.1 million households have shopped online, an increase of 16 per cent when compared to the same time last year, and almost one million of these households had never shopped online before.”
Overall retail revenues fell 4.2 per cent to $29.4 billion in August, reports the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS).
Victoria saw large sales falls across all industries except food retailing, as stage 3 and 4 restrictions saw many businesses unable to trade from their physical stores in August, noted Ben James, director of quarterly economy wide surveys for ABS.