Myer has today gone live with its site hosted and run from China.
All of the products being offered to Australian consumers are being sourced from Asian suppliers and it is trading under the name Myer Sourcing Asia Limited.
The site called myfind.com could have a devastating impact on Australian distributors, if successful.
Harvey Norman has not yet confirmed when their proposed site running out of China will go live.
One option touted to Harvey Norman is that they use eBay technology which allows orders to be taken in Australia but facilitated from distributors overseas.
The move to eBay infrastructure would allow the electronics giant to dispense with having to keep pace with evolving online technology spanning emarketing, transaction as well as technology that allows it to be delivered to consumers on tablets and Smartphones.
It is is the first time ever a major Australian retailer had made such a move overseas for the purposes of supplying cheaper goods to consumers here.
The core reason for the establishment of a foreign run operation is to avoid GST, which the government here currently charges on domestic goods sold while refusing to exert the same levy on items bought from international retailers online under $1000.
“If we can’t beat them we will join them,” lamented Mr Bernie Brookes, Myer’s CEO last year.
“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.”
Myfind.com is run from offices in both Hong Kong and China.
Their men and women ranges have a reasonable selection of items although in their electrical division there are currently just two notebook models on offer – an Acer Aspire 5742 as well as a eMachine eME732Z , although it is a safe bet that other devices will bolster the online offering in the near future.
The eMachine model is
priced very competitively at $498 – over $100 cheaper than other online IT retailers including Techbuy.com or iTech.
The Acer 5742, priced at $697, matches and in a few cases undercuts rivals, when compared on getprice.com.au, which could
see the beginning of the high street retailer carving itself a bigger slice of the Oz
electronics market if its maintains this huge price assault.
The new site is offering delivery for just $10 and is facilitated within
3-5 days via its relationship with China Post in conjunction with
Australia Post.
There is also a postal facility if customers wish to return goods.
The new site is currently being tested and prepared for the mass market.
“This is an exciting new business for Myer targeting a different, growing consumer segment. Myfind.com is a value-focused online business that is quite different to the existing Myer department store offering,” a spokeswoman told the Sydney Morning Herald.
However, at 2.30pm this afternoon the site appeared to go into over drive and went down, proably as news spread of the launch.
The China move was first proposed by Myer last December amidst the GST furore kicked up by retailers including David Jones, Solomon Lew’s Just Group and other major names on the high street.
Harvey Norman Chairman Gerry Harvey also cited a similar move last December following what was branded was the government unfair treatment of domestic retailers compared to foreign counterparts.
