Asher Moses July 26, 2012 The Age Australia Post is modernising its business for the digital age. Australia Post is significantly undercutting Apple in both cost and delivery times for printed cards that users can create on their smartphones with custom photos and text. The Postcards app is part of a digital transformation at the government-owned organisation that has seen parcel volumes climb by 10 per cent in the past year. We may not be sending many letters in the post but the 10 million Australians who shop online every year have been a boon for Australia Post. More than two thirds of its parcels now originate from e-commerce transactions and last year’s Christmas season broke Australia Post records. The Australia Post cards cost $1.99 for domestic postage and $2.99 for international postage. Just how much online shopping we are doing depends on who you ask. According to Morgan Stanley…

Daniel Borris for The New York Times By STEPHANIE CLIFFORD With little room to expand in the suburbs, retailers, including Office Depot, Wal-Mart and Target, are betting that opening small city stores will help their growth. It is a significant shift from their approach in the past, when they tried to cram their big-box formats into cities, often prompting big fights. This time, the retailers studied city dwellers with anthropological intensity and overhauled things as varied as store sizes (the city stores are a small fraction of the size of the suburban ones), packages (they must be compact enough for pedestrians) and signs (they are simple, so shoppers can get in and out within minutes). “The suburbs are basically saturated with retailers,” said Patrick L. Phillips, chief executive of the Urban Land Institute, an urban-planning research nonprofit, “but it’s easy to develop stores in the suburbs, and hard to develop…

Adele Ferguson July 28, 2012 The Age The Australian retail landscape is drowning under a Coles and Woolworths deluge, say industry observers. But can governments or regulators stem the flow? IN THE business world there is big, there is very big, and then there are Coles and Woolworths. Out of every $10 that Australians spend on groceries, up to $8 goes into the tills of the two chains, and the wallet widens when hardware, pokies, electronic goods, petrol, clothes and alcohol are thrown in. Indeed, the two behemoths have become so all-imposing in many towns and suburbs that local wags wonder whether their localities would more appropriately be called Colestown or Woolworthsville. In Toowoomba, Queensland, the territorial fight between the two so-called ugly sisters is at a flashpoint, with the independents – and local suppliers – caught in the crossfire. Debbie Smith, who runs a couple of independent Foodworks stores…

July 28, 2012 The Age Drinkers and smokers face higher “sin taxes” from next week, as prices of alcohol and cigarettes continue to creep up faster than other goods. Taxes on spirits will rise the most, with the excise on a case of pre-mixed drinks rising by 21¢ when the changes take effect on Wednesday. This will mean $33.83 is tax on each case of pre-mixed drinks — which sell for between $60 and $90. A case of 24 cans of full-strength beer will rise by 8¢, taking the tax on a case to $14.97. Because the tax rates reflect alcohol content, the tax on a case of light beer will rise by just 3¢. The tax on a packet of 50 cigarettes will rise by 10¢, taking the government’s take from each packet to $17.44. The excise on a packet of 20 cigarettes will rise by 4¢. Read more:

Chris Zappone July 30, 2012 The Age ·Online shopping carts start to fill up. ·The battle for the consumer dollar is about to get tougher for traditional retailers with Australia Post lining up another online partner to chip away at prices. ·The postal service will be the exclusive shipping partner with a new Australia-based international shopping service called Tarazz.com.au. It’s going to go down like a lead balloon with local retailers “This is going to be perceived as a major kick in the guts for a retail industry already under significant pressure from overseas online retailers,” said Grant Arnott manager for the Online Retailer Tarazz boasts 250,000 different items, mainly from US retailers such as Wal-mart, Champs and Buy.com, with a target market of women fashion shoppers. The online shopping sites expects to increase its offerings to as many as 3 million items within the next year, featuring goods US…