CANBERRA, May 24 -- American online retail giant Amazon is a step closer to making its long-awaited Australian debut, after Australia Post revealed it was in "advanced talks" to secure the lucrative contract to deliver goods to millions of Australian consumers.
Earlier this month, Amazon confirmed to the Australia market that it was actively pursuing land on which to house its goods storage and distribution center. But on Wednesday, Australia's government-owned postal service confirmed it was in advanced talks with the retail chain about securing a deal by July.
Australia Post chief operating officer Bob Black told News Corp that his company, and its express delivery subsidiary StarTrack, has an 82 percent share of the local goods delivery market, and said Amazon was close to signing a deal which would open the door to a revolution in online shopping for Australian consumers.
"We are talking to them now; we will continue to talk to them," Black said.
"When there is a memorandum of understanding between both of us, we will obviously publicize that. But we hope to have something agreed in the next two months. Amazon is a significant -inbound international customer for us already."
In the United States, Amazon currently uses postal companies UPS and Fedex, but it is reportedly pursuing the option to set up its own delivery service, something which could save the company more than a billion U.S. dollars per year.
Black said he expects a similar development in the Australian market, but admitted it was likely well down the track, opening the door for Australia Post and StarTrack to carry the load for a significant amount of time.
"At some point (Amazon) will set up their own distribution network here," Black said.
"But we think they will have grown the market here by then. We want to be able to provide a high level of service at good value for money and give them some great distribution value-add for them to rely on."
It's expected that Amazon could secure a share of up to 4 billion AU dollars (2.99 billion U.S. dollars) in the Australian market once it arrives.
