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Australians Collectively Spent $3.29 Billion Online Over Christmas

We Spent A Lot Of Time (And A LOT Of Money) Buying Stuff Over Christmas
Mixed race woman shopping online on sofa
Mike Kemp via Getty Images
Mixed race woman shopping online on sofa

The spending silly season broke records over the 2015/16 summer, with $3.2 billion worth of online purchases made in Australia.

That's the same value as a brand new casino in Macau or the price Google paid for tech company Nest.

We were spending our portion of $3.2 billion in average transactions of $159, an analysis by online payment processor eWAY found.

The analysis, between November 16, 2015 and January 7, 2016, showed it wasn't necessarily items we were spending our money on, with the top categories by volume going to electronics stores, travel agencies, household appliances, novelty gifts, dining, furniture and women's accessories.

Australian Retailers Association executive director Russell Zimmerman said their preliminary figures showed Australian buyers were embracing a relatively new service called 'click and collect'.

"The basic idea is you click on an item while you're shopping online and you opt to collect it in store," Zimmerman said.

"Our retailers are telling us click and collect was incredibly popular during the Boxing Day sales.

"It's a big movement overseas and there's certainly an emerging trend here."

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