Australians haven't completely cut ties with their colonial masters, if online spending at UK department stores is any guide.
Debenhams and House of Fraser are the two latest UK retailers to target Australian shoppers.
Less than a week after British department store Debenhams launched a dedicated Australian web store, high-street rival House of Fraser has unveiled its own plans to target Australian consumers online with local content and prices in Australian dollars.
House of Fraser chief executive Nigel Cuddy says Australian shoppers are the biggest spenders on the retailer's UK online store, which generates sales of around £247 million ($456 million) a year or around 19 per cent of the retailer's total annual revenues of £1.3 billion ($2.4 billion).
House of Fraser has unveiled its own plans to target Australian consumers online. Photo: Flickr
Debenhams e-commerce director Ross Clemmow says Australia is Debenhams' biggest online market outside the UK, accounting for almost one third of international sales and 47 per cent of international orders.
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Debenhams' online orders from Australia have risen 12 per cent over the last year, despite the decline in the Australian dollar, and the retailer has ambitious plans to triple sales over the next 12 months after launching a localised website and marketing campaign dubbed "A Match Made at Debenhams."
UK department stores Selfridges, Harvey Nichols, Harrods and John Lewis also ship to Australia, although prices at John Lewis are in sterling rather than Australian dollars.
Harris Scarfe plans to open four or five stand-alone Debenhams stores over the next three years. Photo: Angela Milne
A ready-made market
UK retailers have a ready-made market in Australia in the form of about 1.2 million expats who are familiar with their brands and would rather buy clothing and accessories from the British chains than local department stores such as Myer, David Jones, Wesfarmers' Target and Kmart and Woolworths' BIG W.
The UK sites have also proven popular with Australian consumers with a hankering for quintessentially British designers and brands such as Jasper Conran, Barbour, Preen, Jaeger and Dorothy Perkins.
Demand from Down Under is so strong that Debenhams inked deals late last year to open its first Australian bricks and mortar stores under a franchise agreement with department store chain Harris Scarfe, which is owned by global retailer Pepkor.
Harris Scarfe plans to open four or five stand-alone Debenhams stores over the next three years, with each store expected to generate sales of more than $10 million - half that of a suburban Myer store.
Under a separate brand agreement with Debenhams, Harris Scarfe will stock the British retailer's Designers for Debenham's clothing range as well as handbags, cosmetics and intimate apparel. The first Debenhams concessions are expected to be launched in October.
A House of Fraser spokeswoman said the retailer, which was acquired in 2014 by a Chinese conglomerate, Sanpower, had no plans to open bricks and mortar stores in Australia. House of Fraser has one international store in Abu Dhabi and plans to open the first of at least four bricks and mortar stores in China later this year.
A recent report by Citigroup suggested that Australian consumers were bypassing local listed retailers in favour of overseas retailers and pure-play retailers when shopping online. Online retail now represents about 11.2 per cent of total non-food retail sales, but online 'penetration' at the major listed non-food retailers is less than 5 per cent.
more to come...