Electronic retailing in Australia : a review of Australia’s top 20 retailers

Electronic retailing is redefining the way retailers have been conducting business by paving way to reach a global audience. Successful electronic retailing is dependant upon all aspects of the shopping experience, including the usability of the retailers’ website. This paper outlines the state of electronic retailing and gives an overview of Internet adoption in Australia and its use for online shopping. Opportunities and challenges of electronic retailing have been drawn from the extant literature on electronic retailing. An analysis of the usability of Australia’s top twenty retailers’ website has been carried out and factors relating to navigation, searchability, purchasing, layout and visual clarity, information content and others pertaining to online web browsers support and the usage of cookies have been assessed. Currently even if online retailing accounts for a small percentage of aggregate sales, it can be predicted that electronic retailing will only continue to grow significantly in the future.