It appears that after years of speculation that Amazon has finally acknowledged their thinly veiled expansion plans for Australia, announcing they will be launching here, but as to when that will be isn’t clear.
The confirmation comes on the back of a number of different leaks regarding Amazon have come forth including Amazon shopping for physical locations for their massive warehouses here in Australia, which SMH reported on last year. SMH also recently reported on an interview with former global logistics senior manager for Amazon Brittain Ladd who reported Amazon was looking to launch here with a full range of services in 2018.
The quote given to Gizmodo Australia from Amazon Australia confirming their plans to launch here reads:
Amazon Web Services launched an Australian region in 2012, we launched a Kindle Store on Amazon.com.au in 2013, and we now have almost 1,000 employees in the country,” the statement reads.
The next step is to bring a retail offering to Australia, and we are making those plans now. We are excited to bring thousands of new jobs to Australia, millions of dollars in additional investment, and to empower small Australian businesses through Amazon Marketplace.
We are optimistic that by focusing on the things we believe customers value most – low prices, vast selection, and fast delivery – over time we’ll earn the business of Australian customers.
So, there’s no dates, but it appears there’s a lot more meat behind the rumours of Amazon launching here in Australia. Amazon has begun advertising for staff in Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane amongst other jobs in Australia – although these all appear to be related to services already launched here in Australia like Amazon Web Services.
Amazon has slowly been launching more and more services here in Australia, they launched Android Apps through their web store officially back in 2013, and last year launched their Amazon Prime Video service here as well.
How Amazon will deal with the ‘Australia Tax’ we often see with goods available in Australia will be interesting, we’re going to have stay tuned for more on this one.
