By Wayne Cole
SYDNEY, April 13 (Reuters) - The rise of online shopping is giving Australians a way to cash in on the strength of the local dollar in a way that is helping restrain both inflation and interest rates.
The ability to find and safely buy cheaper goods offshore has broken the tyranny of distance that has long saddled Australian shoppers with higher costs and opaque pricing.
"The leakage of sales to the 'net is putting concerted pressure on retailers to pass on savings from the dollar that once they would have kept," said Michael Workman, a senior economist at Commonwealth Bank.
"This deflationary impact essentially means the Reserve Bank has more time before it has to tighten again."
The Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA) lifted interestrates seven times between October 2009 and November last year but has since been on hold, satisfied that it was ahead of the curve on inflation.
Economists had thought it might move again as early as June this year but the latest spurt in the dollar has led many to push that out to August. The futures market is even more relaxed, implying only a 50-50 chance of a move at all in 2011.
The local dollar, known colloquially as the Aussie, hit 29-year peaks on its U.S. counterpart last week and the highest in over two years against the Japanese yen.
Measured against a basket of major currencies, the Aussie's trade weighted index reached new heights this week, having climbed no less than 46 percent since the dark days of the global financial crisis in late 2008.
In the past, a rise in the Aussie had only a faint and fleeting effect on inflation domestically, largely because retailers here were never under pressure to pass on the savings, choosing instead to fatten profit margins.
As a huge country with only a small population -- 22.5 million at last count -- consumers could not benefit from the economies of scale that those in the United states or Europe enjoy. Distance also allowed suppliers and retailers to treat the country as a captive market, setting prices well above what would be charged in, say, American shops.
But all that changed in recent months as brick and mortar retailers found consumers were increasingly jumping ship to online outlets offshore where their dollars were worth more.
Reliable data is scarce but the central bank thinks online sales are thought to account for around 3 percent of Australia's A$700 billion in household consumption, and are growing rapidly.
Facing a buyers' strike, retailers have been forced to pass on savings from the high currency -- and the effect on the consumer price index (CPI) has been dramatic. Of the 100,000 prices in the CPI survey, no less than 30 percent fell in the last quarter of 2010.
HOW CHEAP?
A recent RBA survey of consumers found 80 percent of respondents had made purchases online. The total value of international purchases had been growing by an average 15 percent a year since 2005.
The temptation is understandable. Books and DVDs, for instance, are routinely 30 to 70 percent cheaper abroad, even after the cost of postage.
The current top-selling book on Amazon.uk, for instance, costs A$6.20 at current exchange rates. In Australia, it goes for A$23 online from one of the biggest book chains.
Scenting the potential, the UK arm of Amazon recently stopped charging postage on the 11,000-mile trip to Australia and New Zealand on all orders worth 25 pounds ($41) or more.
The writing was on the wall early this year when billionaire retailing magnate Gerry Harvey joined a campaign to close a loophole that allows Australians to buy up to A$1,000 of goods online without having to pay the standard 10 percent goods tax.
The push drew an absolute deluge of criticism from consumers deriding Australian retailers. So overwhelmingly negative was the response that Harvey withdrew from the campaign, saying getting involved had been "suicidal".
One newspaper poll on the controversy drew 35,500 replies with 99 percent favouring online shopping.
One typical reply: "My daughter likes Wrangler jeans for horse riding. Here, if you can even find them, they are over $100 a pair. She got online to the U.S. and got the jeans for $30 a pair. She bought six pairs and had them here in a week."
"These days, I only go to the big retailers if I have to try on some clothes for size or see a product in real life, before I buy it online at one third of the price," was another.
Indeed, the retailers' campaign served only to let consumers share their favourite sites.
One consumer promoted UK online retailer Wiggle (www.wiggle.co.uk): "The Brooks Glycerin runners I pay over $200 for here are $118 with free postage. Most of the customer reviews on Wiggle products surprisingly were from Australians."
A GIFT FOR THE RBA
Prices for audio, visual and computer gear fell over 18 percent last year as local retailers cut prices to deal with the online threat, while sports equipment dropped 6 percent, major household appliances almost 4 percent, men's clothing 4.8 percent and women's 6.3 percent.
Overall, prices for tradable goods which are dominated by imports were up just 1.6 percent in the year, while those for mostly domestically sourced services rose 3.4 percent.
That played a crucial part in bringing the annual pace of underlying inflation down to a decade-low of 2.25 percent. It looks like slowing even further this quarter to hit the very bottom of the RBA's long-term target band of 2 to 3 percent.
That would be a major surprise as when the RBA last hiked interest rates in November, it had thought core inflation would go no lower than 2.5 percent.
Scott Haslem, chief economist at UBS, calls the ascent of the Aussie "the gift that keeps on giving" for the RBA.
"The ongoing rise of the Australian dollar suggests near zero 'goods' inflation in Australia over the rest of this year," he said.
"Lower across-the-docks prices are more likely to find their way to lower final consumer prices, so for now a high Australian dollar is working hard for the RBA." ($1 = 0.612 British Pounds) (Reporting by Wayne Cole; Editing by Mark Bendeich)