
Amazon’s Australian Launch Brings Excitement, Dread and Defiance - grahamel
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/04/world/australia/amazon-australian-debut.html
======
bonestamp2
Sounds like they didn't open Amazon in Australian -- they opened Amazon Canada
in Australia.

~~~
expertentipp
That would be how Amazon (retail) expands in the EU. They open German Amazon
for new neighboring markets and then there are acrobatics with UI language,
VAT, availability, payment and shipping options, etc.

------
jsmeaton
They missed their first launch date by a week and a half. The lack of
retailers is probably in part due to lack of APIs available til very close to
launch day (within a week for orders) and a non existent sandbox for testing
implementations.

They aren’t yet offering their own products with a few exceptions for cables.

Disclaimer: worked on our implementation as a launch retailer.

~~~
robryan
Yeah, a bunch of the API error messages are still in Japanese. Not that MWS in
any region has ever been a pleasant developer experience.

~~~
codisto
You can fix this:

Update feed processing language to English (AU) : Seller Central > Settings >
Account Info > Business Information > Language for feed processing report

[https://sellercentral.amazon.com.au/sw/AccountInfo/FeedProce...](https://sellercentral.amazon.com.au/sw/AccountInfo/FeedProcessingReport/step/Language?ref_=macs_aifeedln_cont_acinfohm)

~~~
robryan
Thanks!

I guess when the account was first created a bunch of the defaults were either
wrong or not set yet.

------
thisisit
What really is the "dread" factor for Amazon in Australia? My understanding
from a linked article:

[https://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/19/books/australias-
amazon-b...](https://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/19/books/australias-amazon-book-
battle.html)

is that there is a culture of loyalty in Australia. So, this should be a walk
in the part for other companies.

Though as far as I know, and all of this is secondhand knowledge, normal
retail in Australia is costly. So, there is a market for cheap discount based
retailing in Australia. But I could be wrong.

~~~
jpatokal
Aussie here. The Australia Tax [1] is absolutely a thing here: for example,
it's difficult to buy decent kids' shoes for under $100 (!), whereas you can
walk into any Payless in the US and walk out with a decent pair for $25 or so.
Check this out if you don't believe me, and note that this is not a high-end
retailer or anything, it's a chain with an outlet in every suburban shopping
mall in Australia:
[https://www.shoesandsox.com.au/school.html](https://www.shoesandsox.com.au/school.html)

There's a huge slew of reasons for this, but it's a sum of very high rents and
wages, a small market and a general lack of competition. Ebay, Aliexpress and
Amazon US are consequently very popular, but most retailers are international
so shipping is slow and, for anything bulkier, quite expensive. (Also, the
deals aren't _quite_ as good as they used to be since the Aussie dollar has
depreciated against the USD.)

So, if Amazon can build a local operation here that -- for the first time in
Australia -- has the trifecta of low prices, wide selection and fast shipping,
they will _crush_ the competition, online and offline. Which is why local
retailers are scared shitless.

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Australia_Tax](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Australia_Tax)

~~~
will_hughes
The other thing which has made importing shoes and other clothing items
difficult is now that US brands sites won't ship overseas, and they've started
blocking shipments to known reshipping services too.

I can still buy three pairs of name brand shoes from a US purchasing service
(who purchase from the brand's own site) and have them shipped to Australia
for less than the price of one pair on that brand's site here in Australia.

~~~
petecox
ebay from AUS sellers has served me well this year on their site-wide 10-15%
off deals. e.g. Merrell, Colorado, Columbia and Timberland, $50 cheaper than
at a physical shop. KEEN doesn't seem discounted much though.

------
exikyut
Sigh. Heh, I completely forgot Amazon sold everything. I thought this was
about AWS.

If only something AWS- and Australia- related could bring "excitement, dread
and defiance." That would be absolutely absolutely wonderful; getting any sort
of hosting or VPS-type service here is nothing short of insane.

For example the only $20/mo offers I'm aware of only offer like 256MB RAM for
example. And there is a VERY low bandwidth cap, with extra bandwidth starting
at "eye-watering" and skyrocketing to "...wat." pretty quickly.

~~~
danmaz74
Are you limited by ping times? I'm from Europe, but before switching to
Hetzner bare metal machines, I always used VPS from the US...

~~~
ianhowson
Latency is a problem -- typically 180ms to US-west and a little more to EU.
Singapore is 100ms-ish and a good option if AU is too expensive.

Laws and/or customer requirement often require that data be kept onshore, of
course.

~~~
danmaz74
> Laws and/or customer requirement often require that data be kept onshore, of
> course.

Ah, I see. That's of course an important point.

------
dajt
I'm struggling to find anything I want to buy on the Australian website. I
can't even get enough into the basket to get free shipping.

And their goods categorisation is abysmal - whatever department you're in you
seem to get heaps of unrelated dross.

It's a terrible place right now.

When they pick their game up I don't think there will be much loyalty to
existing retailers. Australians are well aware and sick of the Australia tax,
and desperate to join the rest of the western world.

------
Khaine
The only thing I worry about is, if Amazon does decimate the retail industry,
then where will young people find employment?

Youth unemployment in Australia is already quite high at 12.7%. If there is
further erosion of the strength of industries that typically employ youths,
then we will have a large component of a generation where unemployment is the
norm.

------
chris_wot
Incredibly disappointing. They stuffed it.

