Australia is for a German online salesman an attractive online market, which could boast considerable rates of growth in the last few years. In 2012 the size of the market was at about 25 billion US Dollar, today it has grown to nearly 30 billion US Dollar to the account of the Australian retail. When it comes to the access of high-speed-internet and the usage of the internet for buying Australia is globally at the top, far before Germany. The most important product groups besides traveling are CD’s/ music, DVD’s, clothing and jewelry, Computer and software, sport articles and electric appliances.
However there are a lot of rules for online distribution for goods in Australia which must be observed by German online salesmen. The online vendor should consider to design his website in English for trading in Australia and provide a customer bureau which is able to handle written and oral customer inquiries. Goods must be label in AUD. Independent Australian law must be considered. Australian law is based on British law but with increasing alignment of EU distance marketing law the Australian E-Commerce law diverged from British law in many points. Therefore it would be fatal for the trading of goods in Australia to use legal texts which are aligned to British law or even worse to just translate German legal texts to English.
Overview of the most important legal differences:
- Different definition of consumer
- No cancellation right like in the EU distance marketing law, but it is advisable to offer it in the contract
- Compelling warranty law*
- Compelling product liability law for the online vendor as importer*
- Strict data privacy law*
- * Australian law distinguish from German law in some points
If an online company wants to trade with either Australia or Germany it is advisable to consult the Australian Government Department of Foreign Affair (DFAT) and Trade and/or the German-Australian Industry- and chamber of commerce (AHK). On November 15 2015 the Australian Prime minister together with the President of the European and the President of the European Commission agreed on a comprehensive and high-quality Free Trade Agreement (FTA). The key interests and benefits are full potential for trade and investment relationships, to remove barriers, to expand service linkages and investment ties and to enhance regulatory cooperation. The DFAT invites any stakeholders to consult them for further information and advice (http://dfat.gov.au/trade/agreements/aeufta/submissions/Pages/submissions.aspx).
The most important task of the AHK is to counsel German and Australian companies when it comes to market questions and to support business relationships. More information at http://australien.ahk.de/.