Australian consumers appear to continue their migration to online shopping but most players in the retail industry seem to continue miss the significant surge because they have yet to implement the necessary adjustments on their websites.

In a report released on Thursday by Google Australia, searches for available products online have spiked by more than 200 percent yet these opportunities were effectively bypassed by Aussie retailers as their websites were not configured for mobile inquiries, arguably the emerging trend in online shopping.

One of the distinct websites in Australia's bargain online shopping department store is www.dealsdirect.com.au.

Shoppers do not need to sit in-front of their personal computers or laptops, according to the year-over-year Google data, as they can very well perform their search for preferred products while on the go or taking their breaks, thanks much to the advent of mobile computing.

Using the now ubiquitous smartphones and tablet computers, Google said that local shoppers perused retail sites yet many local players were not included on the search results as the search giant's web spider detected incompatibility for optimum mobile web display.

This year alone, the local Google office found that overall shopping online queries on its search facilities jumped by 29 percent in a year-over-year basis, with smartphones emerging as the device preferred by many.

On its latest survey findings, Google Australia revealed that close to 20 percent of smartphone users in the country regularly uses their devices in completing retail purchases online.

Another 49 percent, the Google study said, reported discovering retailers through their smartphones while some 45 percent have stumbled on local retailers via their mobile phones. Much of these searches, according to the report, ended up with the customers either calling up the stores for inquiries or making actual purchases.

However, a big chunk of retailers in the country have been left off from the playing field, according to Google Australia retail chief Ross McDonald, who added that to date, more than 80 percent of advertisers have yet to tweak their campaign pitches for mobile phone viewing.
Those numbers run in counter with the mobile phone penetration trend in the country, which Google said by the end of 2011 will have reached a 50 percent ownership milestone, at least for adult Australians.

McDonald stressed that Aussie retailers need to step up their adjustment measures to emerging consumer behaviour lest they miss out some 25 percent of their prospective customers and sales realisation.

"With some 25 percent of Christmas shopping-related queries coming in on mobile ... the missed potential is huge," the Google executive was quoted by the Australian Associated Press (AAP) as saying.