Australia Ecommerce Industry Report

Monthly Traffic Recovery and Year-on-Year Trajectory

Australian e-commerce stores recorded an average of 14,118.54 monthly visitors in January 2026, marking a significant rebound from the prolonged trough observed across most of 2025. After peaking at 17,613.07 in October 2024, average traffic dropped sharply through early 2025, bottoming out at 7,649.11 in March 2025—a decline of -56.6% from that prior peak. Traffic then stabilised in a narrow band between approximately 8,052 and 8,944 for the bulk of 2025 before accelerating sharply in December 2025 (13,323.94) and continuing into January 2026 (14,118.54). This recovery of +84.6% from the March 2025 low represents a meaningful inflection point for the segment. January 2026's figure is notably +15.3% above January 2025's average of 8,268.69, suggesting the rebound is not purely seasonal in nature.

Channel Composition in January 2026

Organic search dominates the traffic mix for Australian e-commerce stores with overwhelming force. In January 2026, SEO traffic accounted for 91.3% of total traffic (13,696,445 out of 14,993,894 total visits), making it by far the primary acquisition channel. Organic social contributed 8.4% (1,256,245 visits), while paid search represented just 0.2% (22,524 visits) and paid social an even smaller 0.1% (18,680 visits). The near-total reliance on organic search is a defining characteristic of this segment—paid channels collectively drive less than 0.3% of traffic, indicating either minimal investment in performance marketing or a mature content and SEO-led strategy that has reduced dependency on paid acquisition. Organic search traffic grew +63.3% year-on-year, a strong signal that SEO investment is compounding effectively across Australian stores in this cohort.

Revenue Trends Mirror Traffic Patterns

Average store revenue tracked closely with traffic movements throughout the observed period. January 2024 opened at $74,392.15 in average monthly revenue before peaking at $109,477.07 in October 2024—a gain of +47.2% over that ten-month stretch. The subsequent traffic downturn translated directly into revenue pressure, with averages falling to a low of $52,652.00 in March 2025, representing a -51.9% decline from the October 2024 peak. The second half of 2025 showed gradual stabilisation, with revenue ranging between $53,461.57 and $60,847.81. December 2025 brought a sharp uplift to $80,209.06, and January 2026 extended this momentum to $81,851.00—a +43.0% improvement over March 2025's trough and a +42.9% increase year-on-year versus January 2025 ($57,232.27). The correlation between organic traffic growth (+63.3% YoY) and revenue recovery underscores how central SEO performance is to revenue generation for Australian e-commerce operators in this segment.

Organic Traffic Recovery and Seasonal Patterns

Australian e-commerce stores recorded an average SEO traffic of 12,896.84 sessions in January 2026, representing a notable recovery from the trough observed across mid-2025. After peaking at 17,395.50 average monthly SEO sessions in October 2024, organic traffic declined sharply through early 2025, bottoming out at approximately 7,164.65 sessions in September 2025—a contraction of roughly -58.8% from that peak. The segment has since staged a meaningful rebound, with December 2025 posting 12,100.60 average SEO sessions before climbing further to 12,896.84 in January 2026. This recovery aligns with seasonal demand patterns tied to post-holiday browsing behaviour, a recurring phenomenon visible in the 2024 data as well, where January registered 12,137.49 sessions.

Despite the sharp mid-cycle dip, the segment's organic search traffic growth stands at +63.3% on a longer-term basis, indicating that the underlying trajectory remains positive even as short-term fluctuations prove volatile. SEO traffic consistently accounts for the vast majority of total traffic across the period—for instance, in January 2026, organic search contributed 12,896.84 of 14,118.54 total sessions (approximately 91.3%), underscoring how dependent Australian e-commerce stores are on search as their primary acquisition channel.

Domain Authority Under Pressure

The average PageRank for Australian e-commerce stores sits at 2.48 as of January 2026, reflecting a -9.6% year-over-year decline. This downward trend is visible across the domain authority time series: from a local high of 3.39 in October–November 2024, PageRank fell to 2.72 by May 2025 before partially recovering to 3.25 in September 2025, then declining again to 2.48 in January 2026. The pattern suggests cyclical fluctuations in domain strength rather than a steady compounding of authority, which may point to inconsistent link-building activity or changes in how referring domains are weighted over time.

Organic SERPs growth of -3.2% compounds this concern. Fewer indexed search result appearances, combined with declining PageRank, suggests that a meaningful portion of Australian stores are losing ground in search rankings—a structural challenge that traffic volume alone cannot mask. Stores operating in this segment should treat domain authority as a leading indicator: the sustained softness in PageRank through early-to-mid 2025 preceded the traffic trough seen in that same period.

Traffic Concentration and Backlink Landscape

The distribution of SEO traffic across Australian e-commerce stores is heavily skewed toward the lower end. Of the 1,058 stores with identifiable traffic segments, 1,049 generate under 50,000 sessions, while only 6 stores sit in the 100,000–250,000 range and just 3 exceed 250,000 sessions. This extreme concentration means that averages are driven almost entirely by the sub-50k cohort, and a handful of high-traffic outliers exert disproportionate influence on aggregate figures.

The backlink profile shows similarly skewed and volatile data. Average referring domains in January 2026 stood at 729.53, broadly consistent with the 690–830 range observed throughout mid-to-late 2025. Average backlinks reached 17,170.29 in January 2026, continuing a gradual decline from highs seen in mid-2025 (38,276.46 in May 2025). The tapering backlink count, paired with relatively stable referring domain numbers, implies that individual high-volume link sources are rolling off rather than a broad loss of linking partners—a distinction that matters for link profile diversification strategies. Stores in the under-50k traffic cohort, which represent 99.1% of the segment, are likely operating with considerably thinner backlink profiles than aggregate figures suggest.

Paid Search Investment Collapses Year-on-Year

Australian e-commerce stores have experienced a dramatic contraction in paid search activity heading into early 2026. Average paid search spend peaked at $838.26 in February 2025 before falling sharply to $218.27 by January 2026 — a decline of -74.0% over twelve months. The trajectory continued into February 2026, where average spend dropped further to $146.41, sitting at just 60.3% of the global average of $242.95. This divergence from global norms signals that Australian merchants are either reallocating budgets away from Google Ads or pulling back on paid search altogether.

The proportion of stores actively running Google Ads reinforces this retreat. Only 15.7% of Australian stores ran Google Ads at any point this year, and just 12.1% were active in the most recent month. Paid search traffic tells the same story: in January 2026, paid search accounted for just 0.7% of average total traffic (173.26 sessions), down from 5.0% in January 2025. Year-on-year, paid search traffic has contracted -91.0%, while paid search spend has fallen -87.9% — two metrics that move in lockstep and suggest a structural, not seasonal, withdrawal from the channel.

Meta Ads Emerges as the Dominant Paid Channel

While paid search has collapsed, Meta Ads spending paints a contrasting picture for the segment. Australian stores recorded an average Meta Ads spend of $4,588.35 — 160.1% of the global average of $2,866.26. This overindexing on Meta is striking, particularly given how few stores are actually running Meta campaigns: only 0.28% were active last month and 0.27% active this year. This concentration effect — a very small share of stores spending well above the global benchmark — suggests a cohort of high-commitment Meta advertisers is skewing segment averages upward significantly.

Total paid media spend for Australian stores averaged $1,452.74, which is 156.5% of the global average of $928.11. This figure is paradoxical at first glance: overall paid investment is above global norms, yet paid search is collapsing. The explanation lies in the outsized Meta spend from a minority of stores compensating for the broad-based pullback in Google Ads activity.

Seasonal Patterns Mask a Longer Structural Decline

Examining the paid search traffic time series reveals a pattern that extends beyond seasonal fluctuation. In mid-2024, paid search was contributing between 7.9% and 15.3% of total traffic for Australian stores — with April 2024 recording the highest share at 15.3% and an average of 1,782.87 paid sessions. By contrast, November and December 2025 saw paid search traffic shares fall to 1.2% and 0.9% respectively, during a period — peak holiday season — when investment would typically intensify.

Total site traffic has grown substantially over the same window, rising from around 13,438 average monthly sessions in January 2024 to 23,269 in January 2026. This means organic and other non-paid channels are absorbing a larger share of visits, even as paid search withers. For Australian stores still allocating budget to Google Ads, the declining share-of-traffic metric suggests diminishing returns or a shift toward less measurable brand-awareness objectives. The combination of shrinking advertiser participation, falling spend, and near-zero paid traffic contribution points to a segment increasingly reliant on owned and earned media rather than paid search.

Instagram Remains the Dominant Organic Social Channel

Instagram continues to be the primary organic social driver for Australian e-commerce stores, accounting for 13.6% of total traffic in January 2026 — representing an average of 1,308.23 visits per store. This share has climbed meaningfully from 12.1% in April 2025, reflecting a steady increase in Instagram's relative contribution even as absolute traffic volumes have softened. The platform's resilience is notable: while average total traffic across the segment declined from 17,712.38 in April 2025 to 9,600.45 in January 2026, Instagram's share held firm and trended upward through the second half of 2025, peaking at 14.1% in November before a seasonal dip in December (12.7%) and recovery in January.

However, posting frequency tells a more cautious story. Australian stores averaged 2.75 posts per week on Instagram in January 2026, down -29.0% from 3.87 posts per week the prior month. This is a significant pullback in content output and may partly explain the softening in absolute Instagram traffic. With an average engagement rate of just 0.02% across the segment, stores are facing a challenging organic reach environment, underscoring the importance of consistent posting cadence to maintain audience visibility.

TikTok Traffic Recovers After a Prolonged Softening Period

TikTok's contribution to total traffic reached 4.5% in January 2026 — equivalent to an average of 618.49 visits per store — recovering from a low of 3.2% in December 2025. This rebound follows a gradual deceleration from the March 2025 peak, when TikTok accounted for 5.7% of traffic and averaged 1,831.73 visits per store, likely reflecting an influx of stores entering the dataset or a viral traffic event during that period. Since then, TikTok's share has normalised in the 3.2%–4.5% range.

Posting activity on TikTok is trending in the opposite direction to Instagram. Weekly uploads rose to 3.60 per store in January 2026, up +21.6% from 2.96 uploads per week in December. This increase in TikTok content output — combined with the platform's traffic recovery — suggests Australian e-commerce operators may be strategically shifting short-form video effort toward TikTok as Instagram posting drops. The divergence in content strategy between the two platforms will be an important dynamic to monitor in the months ahead.

Organic Social as a Traffic Channel Shows Strong Structural Growth

Beyond platform-specific referral data, the broader organic social traffic category has undergone a structural transformation since early 2025. In January and February 2025, organic social traffic was effectively negligible — averaging just 2.31 and 2.85 visits per store respectively, representing 0.0% of total traffic. By March 2025, this surged to 88.13 average visits and 1.2% share, and the channel has since stabilised as a meaningful contributor, reaching 1,182.90 average visits and 8.4% of total traffic in January 2026.

The follower base underpinning these results is heavily skewed toward smaller accounts: 254 stores fall under 10k followers and 221 stores sit in the 10k–50k range, together representing the largest cohort. Mid-tier stores (50k–100k followers) number 130, while 150 stores hold 100k–250k followers and 110 stores have surpassed 250k. This distribution indicates that organic social growth in Australia is being driven broadly across the follower spectrum rather than concentrated among large-audience players alone, suggesting meaningful upside potential as smaller stores develop their social presence. With an overall average of 4.78 posts per week across all channels, maintaining consistent output will be critical to sustaining the organic social gains recorded over the past nine months.

Lighthouse Performance Scores Signal Room for Improvement

Australia's e-commerce stores recorded an average Lighthouse Performance score of 51.8/100 in January 2026, reflecting a modest +1.0% improvement over the previous month's score of 52.2/100 (current: 53.5/100 vs prior: 52.2/100). While the month-on-month trajectory is positive, the absolute score remains well below the optimal threshold, suggesting that page speed and core web vitals continue to be a meaningful friction point for Australian online retailers. Slow-loading storefronts directly impact conversion rates and paid traffic efficiency, making this a critical area for ongoing investment. The marginal gain indicates early-stage optimisation efforts may be underway across the segment, but sustained progress will require more systemic technical improvements.

SEO Health Remains a Relative Strength

In contrast to performance scores, SEO remains a clear bright spot for Australian e-commerce stores. The average Lighthouse SEO score reached 91.5/100 in January 2026, with no meaningful change recorded month-on-month (current: 91.3/100 vs prior: 91.5/100, 0% change). This high baseline indicates that Australian merchants are generally maintaining strong on-page SEO fundamentals — including meta tags, structured data, and crawlability standards — at a consistently high level. Accessibility scores similarly held steady at 85.4/100 (vs 85.4/100 the prior month, 0% change), suggesting these stores are meeting reasonable usability standards for broader audiences. The stability across SEO and accessibility metrics, even as performance fluctuates, points to deliberate maintenance of content and compliance standards while technical performance catches up.

Catalogue Size and Pricing Trends Reflect a Diverse Merchant Mix

The SKU distribution across Australian stores reveals a segment dominated by smaller catalogues: 538 stores carry between 0–250 SKUs, making this the largest cohort by a significant margin. Mid-range catalogues (251–500 SKUs) account for 158 stores, while 118 stores sit in the 501–1,000 range. Larger merchants with 1,001–2,500 SKUs number 210, and only 46 stores operate catalogues exceeding 2,500 SKUs. This distribution suggests the majority of Australian e-commerce operators are either niche specialists or early-growth businesses, with a smaller but notable cluster of more established, high-volume retailers.

Average product pricing has shown notable volatility over the past six months. Starting at $238.51 in August 2025, prices climbed steadily to a peak of $307.97 in November 2025 — likely reflecting seasonal and promotional dynamics heading into the holiday period. Prices then eased to $267.43 in December 2025 and $262.00 in January 2026, consistent with post-peak normalisation. February 2026 recorded a sharp spike to $386.31, a +47.5% jump from the August baseline, which may reflect a shift in product mix toward higher-value items, reduced promotional discounting, or changes in the stores contributing data for that period. This upward pricing trend, if sustained, could influence conversion rates and average order values across the segment in the months ahead.