Global e-commerce juggernaut Amazon.com (AMZN, -0.51%) on Thursday said it will open its online shopfront service in Australia, ending rumors about its plans and increasing the pressure on the domestic retail sector to catch up with the digital economy.
The announcement fires the starting gun on a new era of competition between bricks-and-mortar and online retail in the world’s 12th-largest economy, where 80% of the population live in cities and more than 90% have home internet.
