Eli Greenblat and Clancy Yeates
THE boss of Australia’s biggest department store, Myer, is investigating the merits of a China-based retail website to allow customers to shop GST-free.
Bernie Brookes told a business lunch in Melbourne yesterday other leading Australian businesses such as Woolworths and Bunnings could follow Myer’s plan to operate a website from China that takes orders from Australian consumers as the sector grows increasingly angry over the leakage of sales to online stores. There has been frustration with the federal government’s failure to act on an estimated $20 billion in sales on overseas sites that is not taxed.
”If we can’t beat them we will join them,” Mr Brookes warned. ”We just want a level playing field. We will take jobs offshore and we will ship product out of China through our internet site, it’s a bloody shame.”
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Mr Brookes joins other retailers demanding government action, including Harvey Norman executive chairman Gerry Harvey who last week called for the current $1000 GST-free threshold to be lowered to curb shoppers buying online from overseas suppliers.
Online shopping’s popularity has increased this year as the Australian dollar hit parity with the US dollar, making millions of items on American websites significantly cheaper than here.
Mr Brookes said a motivation to look at a China-based model for Myer’s department store operations was the inaction and seeming lack of interest from federal Treasurer Wayne Swan. Assistant Treasurer Bill Shorten said the government was looking at the issue, but had no plans to put the GST on online shopping.
Mr Brookes said Myer’s China-based website could be up and running by February, attracting a significant portion of the company’s estimated $5 million a year in existing internet sales. Goods ordered from the site, such as dresses, jeans or coats, would be packed and shipped from its hub in Shenzhen, southern China, and avoid GST charges.
A spokeswoman for David Jones said it had no plans to create an offshore website.
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