'Amazon will eat our breakfast, lunch and dinner,' says Richard Goyder
By Sue Mitchell, March 2, 2016, Ths Sydney Mornbing Herald, Business Days
Wesfarmers group managing director Richard Goyder says US online retail behemoth Amazon will "eat all our breakfasts, lunches and dinners", unless Australian retailers become more innovative and barriers to competition are removed.
Mr Goyder told a retail forum in Sydney on Tuesday his biggest fear was not the competitive threat from Australian retailers, but tech companies such as Amazon, which are gearing up for a major push into Australia.
"We've got big competition online and through a physical presence … we are in a disruptive, disrupted world," Mr Goyder told about 450 retailers at the Retail Leaders forum.
Mr Goyder said online retailers such as Amazon, Google and asos.com could trade 24 hours a day, seven days a week and 365 days a year, while Australian bricks and mortar retailers, including Wesfarmers' Bunnings, Kmart, Target, Coles and Officeworks chains, were restricted by archaic trading hours and excessive regulation.
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In Perth, for example, some large bricks and mortar retailers could only trade for six hours a day on Sunday, which is now the busiest shopping day of the week in other cities.
However, the concept of pure bricks and mortar retailing was fast abating and all retailers needed to have an online and social media presence, he said.
Négocier le prix sur les sites de e-commerce est désormais possible.