On Tuesday, the first day of trade on Amazon Australia, a local toy retailer sold more than 100 items.
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Matty’s Playtime owner Matt Rose knew it would be a wise move to join Amazon, but he had no idea just how profitable it would prove to be.
“It blew us away,” he said.
“We’ve been on Ebay for 11 years, we’re used to what happens at Christmas time, but when Amazon came on we hadn’t seen anything like it.
“It was actually overwhelming.
“It went ballistic to the point we had to disable the account, we got a couple of glitches.
“It was good, but it was also stressful.”
The South Nowra business was registered but unprepared for the launch, but it’s back online now.
All of Matt’s casuals have been working in the lead up to Christmas, and he may need to employ an extra staff member to cope with the demands from Amazon customers.
“It’s a bit too early to tell, it may happen,” he said.
“Christmas is a bit of a false positive.
“I’m giving the casuals heaps of extra hours this week to cope with the load.”
Despite an increased demand from online consumers, Matt won’t be abandoning his bricks and mortar store any time soon.
“Originally we were 100 per cent e-commerce, the reason we went to bricks and mortar is online demand declined due to increased competition, big business caught up with us, to survive financially we had to sell locally,” he said.
“I think there’s always going to be a need for bricks and mortar, we sell some things that you really want to see first hand.”
Amazon takes a monthly fee and a small percentage fee on sales.