A report released this month by the Australian Communications and Media Authority found eBay Australia’s most popular online retailer.

The report titled E-Commerce Marketplace in Australia: Online Shopping, showed eBay attracted the largest audience, reaching 4.3 million people during June 2011 compared to 1.6 people visiting Amazon’s website and 1.4 million Australian visiting the website of Woolworths.

The report found 59 percent of adults went online several times a day for their own purpose, not related to their work, in the six months to April 2011. Approximately 62 per cent of adult internet users in Australia purchased goods and services online in the six months to April 2011, with convenience and price the main drivers of online shopping.

Other key findings of the report are:

• Most purchasing online occurs via a computer with online shopping via mobile handsets still relatively small;
• There are signs that online social networking is starting to influence consumers purchasing decisions, with some 169,000 people estimating to have purchased a good or service as a result of advice on a social networking site during June 2011;
• The most likely age group to shop online are those aged between 35-44 years old (73 per cent of internet users in that age group purchasing online);
• Internet users living in remote locations of Australia have a higher incidence of online shopping (70 per cent) than their counterparts in metropolitan areas (63 per cent);
• Ninety-one per cent of online shoppers used either credits cards or direct money transfer services to pay for their purchases online.