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Writer's pictureKatherine Kohan

The ABCs: A haiku on living in Australia

Updated: Sep 26, 2023

Amazon is bad

Beautiful is everywhere

Clothes should be line dried


A: Amazon is bad

I'll be brief. In the States, I run my life on Amazon. I assumed that I could do so in Australia and attempted to place an order, to which I was told that some of my items MIGHT make it in two weeks and others, despite being told that they did get shipped, I have never received. I did a quick perusal on some statistics and turns out, Amazon is trying their best, but is not the dominant shop-all it is in the States.


Below (Investopedia and Statista) shows Australia in 2022 as the 12th largest economy, effectively 2.5 times smaller than Japan and Japan as the smallest independently called out country revenue stream from Amazon.

For simplicity, let's just say Australia is 1/3rd the size of Japan. So, one would THINK it could achieve up to 1/3rd the Amazon sales revenue of Japan. Which would put anticipated sales revenue at around $8B (1/3rd of the roughly $24B Japan generated).


From the Australia Financial Review....

Amazon Australia had a strong 2022, with reported revenue rising 50 per cent year-on-year to surpass $2.6 billion

Seems like it still has a long way to go from where I am sitting.... package free....

B: Beautiful is everywhere

Despite a fairly robust google search, I could not find an article noting "beautiful" as an Australian turn of phrase. I find this surprising because in response to almost anything, I find Australians will reply "Beautiful." It is a replace for "great" or "cool" or "no problem." It makes me wonder - are they trying to subtly remind you about how beautiful the country is? It is a fair point because it is in fact incredibly beautiful, but mate, do you have to tell me every day?





C: Clothes should be line dried

I am not the first nor will I be the last American to point this out.





What a fun first few months it has been getting settled into Perth. Stay tuned for more.





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