Insights from the 2026 Australia Post eCommerce Report

We’ve now pulled the headlines out of four AusPost eCommerce Reports in a row — 2023, 2024, and 2025. The 2026 edition is the most loaded yet — $82.6B online, 16 retailers per household, agentic AI on the doorstep, and the most interesting delivery chart they’ve ever published.

I sat down with Simon Dell on the CEMOH Fractional CMO Podcast to talk through what it means for Australian retailers. You can listen below, then read on for the Opportunities and Challenges we see for eCommerce brands in the year ahead.

Listen on Spotify · Apple Podcasts · CEMOH

Opportunities:

Win the certainty game — not the speed war

The most differentiated chart in the report (p.23) shows certainty beats speed dramatically for everyone over 40. Baby Boomers say certainty over speed 87%; Builders 90%. And those two cohorts are the fastest-growing online spenders — Builders +16.9% YoY, Boomers +14.8%, with the biggest baskets in the country. THE ICONIC reported a 3–10% conversion drop for every extra delivery day, and 70% of shoppers say poor delivery comms at checkout reduces their likelihood to buy.

TIPS: Show a delivery date on PDPs and at checkout, not a vague “fast delivery” promise. “Arrives Thursday” outperforms “Express shipping” for anyone over 40 — which happens to be the segment with the biggest baskets and the fastest growth.

Get cited in AI answers — GEO is the new SEO

Product discovery is being rewritten in real time. 64% of consumers now use AI for product research (84% of 18–24s). AI Overviews now appear on 14% of shopping queries — up from just 2.1% four months prior. Traffic from AI platforms to US retail sites surged 4,700% YoY in 2025. AI-referred shoppers spend 32% more time on site and bounce 27% less. The game has moved from winning clicks on a link list to getting cited inside the AI-generated answer.

TIPS: Audit your structured data, product attribute coverage, and multi-platform presence. Optimise for the question a shopper actually asks AI (“what sunscreen should I take to Bondi in January?”), not just the keyword they type into Google.

Parcel Lockers — the hidden conversion lever

The report’s most under-played stat: 42% of shoppers don’t know Parcel Lockers exist, but 74% would use them once they do. 32% would switch retailers for out-of-home collection. OOH delivery is growing 17% YoY with NPS scores 3x higher than missed home deliveries.

TIPS: Surface OOH collection prominently at checkout — not as a fine-print option. Train your CX team on it, and build “your locker pickup is ready” comms. It’s a better post-purchase moment than a missed-delivery card on the doormat.

Use marketplaces as acquisition, not as home

Marketplaces hit $18.9B (23% of total online spend, +13% YoY). Amazon AU is now in 60% of households, Temu at 47% reach (+63% revenue YoY), Bunnings already takes 74% of online sales from 3P sellers. For big retailers this is a distribution opportunity. For everyone else, it’s a top-of-funnel channel — not a home.

TIPS: Treat marketplaces as paid acquisition. Use packaging inserts, post-purchase comms and exclusive DTC SKUs to pull customers into your owned channel where you keep the data, the margin, and the relationship.

Regional shoppers are still outgrowing metro

Outer regional spend grew +14.4% YoY vs metro +13.8% — the gap has narrowed but regional is still leading. Top postcodes by volume still include Toowoomba, Mackay, and pockets of regional NSW/VIC.

TIPS: Geo-targeted paid media, regional carrier zones with realistic SLAs (not city-default 2-day quotes), and localised offers. Roughly 30% of your online demand lives outside the capitals — design for it.

Recommerce is still wide open

46% of Australians buy second-hand annually, but only 14% of businesses participate. 73% say they’d happily buy pre-owned directly from retailers. The Productivity Commission’s January 2026 report flagged national product stewardship mandates coming for electronics, textiles and EVs — recommerce will be regulated into the mainstream within a few years.

TIPS: Pilot a certified-pre-owned or trade-in program now. New revenue stream, lapsed-customer reactivation engine, sustainability story — and you’re ahead of the regulation rather than scrambling when it lands.

Challenges:

The 14% growth headline is already softening

The $82.6B / +14% figure is real, but it’s a snapshot of the good times. NAB’s monthly Online Retail Index showed YoY growth slowing through late 2025 — Jul 16.2% → Aug 15.1% → Sep 12.5%. ANZ-Roy Morgan consumer confidence hit 58.8 in late March 2026 — a record low in its 50+ year history. February 2026’s Monthly Household Spending was only +0.3% MoM — the first household-spending contraction in 17 months. The deceleration is now in the official data.

TIPS: Plan for the trajectory, not the headline. Build scenarios at 8% and 4% growth, double down on retention and CLV, and don’t bank next year’s marketing budget on +14% repeating.

Loyalty is dead — shoppers now buy from 16 retailers

The average household now buys from 16 retailers — double a decade ago. 81% shop around for the best deal, 73% wait for sales events, and 40% of Gen Z hold out for Black Friday / Click Frenzy. Meanwhile the average basket has slid to $96 (-0.4% YoY, down $10 from 2020). The report calls this “shopper promiscuity” — and it’s structural, not cyclical.

TIPS: Stop treating AOV as a health metric. Measure share of wallet, purchase frequency and CLV instead. Loyalty programs only work now if the perks are real — free shipping, cashback, exclusive bundles — not points-for-points-sake.

Marketplaces are a trap for SMBs

For all the upside in marketplaces as an acquisition channel, the marketplace landscape has been violent for smaller brands. Catch.com.au ceased trading April 2025. MyDeal closed September 2025 with sellers force-migrated to Woolworths MarketPlus. Combined marketplace fees now sit at 15–30%. Amazon aggregates seller data to launch Amazon Basics. Build exclusively on someone else’s platform and you don’t own your customer — what one analyst calls “digital sharecropping”.

TIPS: If you sell on a marketplace, build the exit ramp from day one. Capture email/SMS direct, invest in your owned site, and use the marketplace as a top-of-funnel acquisition channel — never as your only one.

Australia is exporting social commerce revenue

TikTok Shop is still not available in Australia. Meanwhile, AU brand HiSmile is generating US$2.67M GMV via TikTok Shop in the US and UK. Global social commerce will hit $2.11T in 2026, growing at 29% CAGR. Standard social traffic converts at just 0.7% — the lowest of any source — but live commerce subverts that via scarcity, FOMO and parasocial trust (Whatnot daily broadcasters earn 100–250x more than sporadic sellers).

TIPS: Don’t wait for TikTok Shop to land in AU. Pilot live commerce on Instagram Live, YouTube Live or Whatnot now. Early movers will compound an engaged audience and platform learnings long before the channel matures locally.

2026 belongs to brands that own the relationship

The thread running through this year’s report is ownership. Customers want certainty — about delivery, brand quality, value — and they’ll happily switch to whoever delivers it. The winners in 2026 will own the customer relationship rather than rent it from a marketplace, a social platform, or an AI agent.

Need a hand turning these insights into action? We’re offering listeners and readers a free 30-minute eCommerce Benchmarking Consultation:

eCommerceChris JowseyeCommerce, Trends