Benefits … Jenny Nethercote, who runs the Hattery, a small business in Katoomba, has been online for the past 10 years . Photo: Jacky Ghossein

THE tagline popped up on billboards around town before Christmas:  “Browse it at Westfield, buy it brand new on eBay”.

Australians didn’t need any encouragement. They were already shopping by mouse.

In the past year, shoppers have clicked and spent $10 billion to $12 billion online, about 5 per cent of total retail sales of $250 billion. The executive director of the Australian Retailers Association, Russell Zimmerman, says about half the online figure was spent offshore.

Read the full article by Helen Greenwood here…