Australia’s number one online retailing group, CatchOfTheDay, which operates leading e-commerce sites CatchOfTheDay.com.au and Scoopon.com.au, has closed an investment for a minority stake in the company from New York-based Tiger Global Management and a group of leading Australian businessmen including James Packer’s Consolidated Press Holdings (CPH), Andrew Bassat, co-founder and CEO of Seek and Glenn Poswell founder of Gannet Capital.
The founders of CatchOfTheDay, Gabby and Hezi Leibovich, will retain a controlling stake in the group businesses, with Lee Fixel from Tiger Global and Jason Lenga from Seek joining the board.
The …

SmartCompany today reported James Packer-backed fund, Ellerston Capital has invested an estimated $10M in DealsDirect.
“Maybe we’ve got Gerry to thank again,” co-founder Paul Greenberg told SmartCompany.
Read the full article on SmartCompany.

News Limited’s chairman and chief executive John Hartigan today announced the launch of a new national ticketing service – Foxtix – which will take on the Ticketek/Ticketmaster duopoly with an aggressive entry into mainstream major event ticketing.
“This new venture will provide ticket buyers, venues and event promoters with a more powerful option than they are getting now and will open up new marketing opportunities for major events across News Limited’s network of newspapers and websites,” Hartigan said.
Foxtix will work closely with News Limited’s media platforms to provide promoters and …

Australian flower retailer 1300 FLOWERS today announces the friendly acquisition of the privately held Fast Flowers Group. The acquisition further cements 1300 FLOWERS’ position as one of Australia’s leading floral retailers.
1300 FLOWERS’ chairman Jack Singleton says he is “delighted by the transaction that brings Fast Flowers under the 1300 FLOWERS umbrella. Fast Flowers has strong brand recognition and has grown to become an industry leader over the last decade. This is testament to the abilities of CEO Jonathan Barouch and his management team”.
1300 FLOWERS will take operational control of the …

In a recent interview on ABC’s Inside Business, Myer CEO, Bernie Brookes comments that online sales would be “one of our three or four big drivers” of growth.
“For us it’s very profitable for the simple reason that you get no cost of fulfilment, you only get the cost of freight. So this can be an enormous opportunity for us going forward, but we’ll move along with the customers.”
Click here to read the full interview transcript.

Consumer domestic online spending accounts for only 3% of total retail sales
SYDNEY, 20 July 2010 – Australia’s consumer eCommerce market is underdeveloped, lagging both the US and UK markets by approximately three years according to the latest eCommerce analysis issued by consulting company, Frost & Sullivan. Online retail consumer spending in Australia in 2010 is expected to account for approximately five per cent of total retail sales, however if spending on overseas sites is excluded, this drops to around three per cent. In contrast, online as a percentage of total …

The annual Online Retailer Expo & Conference is underway this week with over 3,000 delegates registered to discuss the future of e-commerce in Australia and how to bring world class best practice to Australian retailers.
The e-commerce industry in Australia has seen rapid growth over the last year and is forecast to reach $AU33.8 billion by 2012 up from $AU24 billion last year.
In the last six months alone, large Australian retailers such as BigW have extended their presence online, providing a significant boost to the industry. As Australian businesses become increasingly …

Amazon is appearing tight-lipped about it’s latest acquisition, Woot.com.  The announcement was made on Woot’s blog a short time ago.  In typical Woot style, the letter from CEO, Matt Rutledge, says a lot, without really saying anything at all…

SMH has reported shopping centre giant, Westfield, is in the final stages of negotiation to develop an online shopping mall for participating retailers.
It is understood the online mall will be led by fashion, which the company sees as its strongest attraction, and split into categories including electronics and books.

MEDIA RELEASE – Although Australian bricks and mortar retailers have been slow to expand online, they have a distinct advantage over web-only retailers, according to the Executive Director of Salmat Digital, Paul Marshall.

In his presentation to the Online Retailer conference in Sydney today, Paul said that brand awareness, loyalty and an existing customer base are key assets when Bricks and Mortar retailers take their business online. Combine that with the power of the store network to give their customers a true multichannel shopping choice and they have …