Australian Ecommerce Report 2026: What $82.6b Means for Shopify Stores

The Australian ecommerce report 2026 from Australia Post confirms another record year: Australians spent $82.6 billion online in 2025, up 14% on the $72.5 billion spent in 2024. Online now makes up 24% of all retail spend, and a record 9.8 million households, or 82%, bought something online.

The headline is good news, but the detail matters more for Shopify merchants. Growth is coming from people buying more often, not spending more per order. Marketplaces are taking almost a quarter of the pie, and shoppers want pre-loved and refurbished products that most retailers do not sell.

Below we unpack the Australia Post eCommerce Report 2026 and turn its numbers into practical moves for Shopify stores.

What are the headline numbers?

Australia Post's report draws on CommBank iQ spending data, plus its own delivery and consumer research. The key figures:

NSW alone accounts for about 1 in 3 online dollars. The busiest delivery postcode is regional Queensland, followed by Mackay and Point Cook in Victoria, a reminder that regional shoppers are a core market, not an afterthought.

Why are baskets shrinking while spend grows?

This is the most important trend in the report for anyone running a Shopify store. According to Australia Post's summary of the 2026 trends:

• Shoppers made four more online purchases in 2025 than the year before.
• The average basket is $96, which is $10 lower than in 2020.
• Households buy from an average of 16 brands a year.

Australians are treating online shopping like a habit, with smaller and more frequent orders spread across many brands. For a merchant, a customer's lifetime value now depends more on how often they come back than on any single order.

What does this mean for Shopify merchants?

• Retention beats acquisition. If customers spread purchases across 16 brands, the brand that stays top of mind gets the repeat order. Email and SMS flows, loyalty programs and replenishment reminders matter more than ever. A May 2026 scan of Australian Shopify stores by Eightx, based on Storeleads data, found Klaviyo on only 21.4% of them, so many stores still have room to improve here.
• Make repeat checkout fast. Shop Pay is detected on 66.6% of Australian Shopify stores in the same scan, and Shopify's Q2 2026 results showed Shop Pay GMV up 53% globally. Accelerated checkout removes friction for small, frequent orders.
• Free shipping thresholds need a rethink. With smaller baskets, a threshold set years ago may be too high and quietly push shoppers to a competitor. Test it against your current average order value.
• Subscriptions fit the pattern. Consumables, beauty, pet and food brands can turn frequent small orders into predictable revenue.

Who is spending, and where?

Millennials remain the biggest online spenders at $29.7 billion, up 13.1%, and 28% of their spending is online. 47% of Millennials shop online weekly or more, compared with an average of 35% across all shoppers.

The fastest growth came from the oldest group. Builders spent $3.4 billion online, up 16.9%. Stores that assume their customers are all digital natives may be missing an older audience that is growing faster than any other, and that responds to clear navigation, readable fonts and simple checkout.

Are marketplaces a threat or a channel?

Australians spent $18.9 billion on pure online marketplaces in 2025, up 13% and equal to 23% of total online spend. Australia Post also found 69% of shoppers use marketplace apps, while 78% use retailer websites.

Both channels are used by most shoppers, so the question is not brand store versus marketplace. It is how to use marketplaces for reach without giving away your margin and customer relationship. Common approaches for Shopify brands:

• List a focused range (bestsellers, clearance or bundles) on marketplaces, and keep full range and exclusives on your own store.
• Sync inventory and orders back to Shopify so stock is not oversold across channels. Shopify's own Marketplace Connect app is one option. Shopify's Winter '26 Edition roundup lists the first 50 marketplace orders a month as free, then a 1% fee per order capped at US$99 a month.
• Use packaging inserts and post-purchase emails to bring marketplace buyers to your own site for repeat orders.

Is recommerce worth it for Australian brands?

The report found a clear gap between demand and supply:

• 46% of Australians buy second-hand goods every year.
• 73% are interested in buying pre-loved or refurbished goods directly from retailers.
• Only 14% of businesses currently offer it.

For fashion, outdoor, electronics and homewares brands on Shopify, a resale or trade-in program is a way to stand out while most competitors stay out of the space. It can start small: a curated "pre-loved" collection, store credit for trade-ins, or refurbished returns sold at a discount.

Do content and delivery still drive conversion?

Yes, and the numbers are strong. 60% of Australian shoppers use social media for product discovery, and 1 in 2 have bought something after seeing it on social. On delivery, 73% say a good delivery experience makes them more likely to shop online, and 69% want a wide range of delivery options at checkout.

For Shopify stores, that means social content and checkout delivery options sit directly on the path to purchase, not on the fringes of the marketing plan.

AI is the next discovery layer. Australia Post found 62% of shoppers use AI and expects it to influence up to 30% of eCommerce transactions by 2030. Direct AI checkout is still largely limited to US buyers as of October 2026, as Ecommerce News Australia has reported, so the near-term job is making product data clear enough for AI tools to recommend.

What should you do next?

Here is a practical plan based on business size.

Small stores (under about A$1m in annual sales)

1. Check your free shipping threshold against your current average order value.
2. Set up the core Shopify Email or Klaviyo flows: welcome, abandoned cart, post-purchase and win-back.
3. Post product content on one social channel consistently rather than five channels badly.

Growing brands (about A$1m to A$10m)

1. Add a loyalty or subscription program to lift purchase frequency.
2. Test one marketplace with a limited range, with inventory synced to Shopify.
3. Pilot a pre-loved or trade-in collection for one product line.

Established and multi-channel brands

1. Build a single customer view across store, marketplace and retail, so repeat behaviour is measurable.
2. Review delivery options by region, including regional Queensland and Victorian growth corridors.
3. Treat recommerce as a strategic channel with its own targets.

The bottom line

The Australian ecommerce report 2026 shows a market that is still growing strongly, with $82.6 billion spent and 9.8 million households buying online. The way Australians shop has shifted, though: more orders, smaller baskets, more brands, and growing interest in marketplaces and pre-loved goods.

The Shopify stores that win in 2026 will design for frequency, not one big purchase. That means investing in retention, flexible delivery and new channels such as recommerce. If you want to turn these insights into a working roadmap for your store, ONEXT's Shopify development team can help as your trusted delivery partner.