Ecommerce in 2026: What Australian Brands Should Actually Be Paying Attention To
Five shifts in how Australians shop online, from the Australia Post eCommerce Report 2026, and the decision each one points to.
By the FORJ Digital team
Ecommerce and Shopify agency in Melbourne.
FORJ works across the store, the campaign and the customer journey. That covers Shopify builds and redesigns, product and collection structure, merchandising, conversion, paid acquisition, SEO and content, with ongoing optimisation once the store is live.
Common starting points
- A Shopify store that is underperforming.
- A new ecommerce site.
- A move from wholesale or retail into direct-to-consumer.
- Ecommerce, paid media and content that need connecting.
- Reporting that doesn't show what is working.
- Ongoing support without hiring an internal team.
What ecommerce work covers
Improve the store, merchandising, customer journey and paid acquisition so more visits turn into orders.
- Ecommerce strategyWhere the store should focus, and how the channels should work together.
- Store builds and redesignsShopify first, with product pages, navigation and checkout designed for how people buy.
- Product architectureProduct, collection and category structure, merchandising and content structure.
- Conversion optimisationFinding where customers drop out, and fixing the page, offer or path causing it.
- Promotional planningSale periods and launches planned across the store, the campaigns and the creative.
- Analytics and integrationsEcommerce analytics, email and CRM integration support, and marketplaces such as Amazon if you sell there.
Five decisions that move ecommerce performance
- Store
- Offer
- Creative
- Traffic
- Conversion
If paid traffic is reaching the site but customers are dropping out on the product page, increasing ad spend is not the fix. We look at the store, offer, creative and acquisition together so we can work on the actual problem.
Case studyEcommerce and Paid media
BlueAnt
BlueAnt moved into direct-to-consumer sales right before Black Friday. FORJ treated Black Friday as the launch of the D2C channel and rebuilt the paid media account around it.
Result
Within 4 weeks, the online store matched what it had previously done in a full year.
Over the first 6 months, the D2C channel generated over multiple seven figures across Shopify and Amazon AU and US. It became a channel the business can scale with confidence.
blueant.com.auThe work
- 01
The situation
BlueAnt had built a strong business through retail. Online existed, but it wasn't a focus. It was doing low six figures annually, mostly warranty, parts and occasional direct sales.
- 02
The approach
We treated Black Friday as the launch of D2C rather than another sale, and set the account up to handle launch-week demand from the first day.
- 03
What changed
D2C is now a core part of the business.
FORJ's rolePaid media structure, campaign management and tracking
More ecommerce work
- FORJ is Wise Wine's marketing, SEO and ecommerce partner, and is building a Shopify store that combines wine sales with restaurant and wedding bookings.In progress
Wise Wine
Jibba's Hot Sauce
- FORJ runs marketing for My Divine Home, a homewares and furniture store in Busselton, and rebuilt how the online store prices and ships its range.
My Divine Home
How an engagement runs
Some engagements are a single project. Much of the work continues as ongoing optimisation.
- Stage 01Review
- Stage 02Plan
- Stage 03Make the changes
- Stage 04Ongoing optimisationOptional
What isn't included
Custom enterprise software, complex app development, enterprise systems integration and specialist CRM architecture. FORJ can work alongside external specialists where a store needs them.
Related reading
7 Ecommerce Growth Levers We Review Before Increasing Ad Spend
What we check before recommending more ad spend, and why paid acquisition sits around these seven levers.
By the FORJ Digital teamHow We Structure an Ecommerce Growth Funnel: Acquisition, Conversion and Retention
The seven parts of an ecommerce funnel we review, and why more traffic is rarely the first fix when growth stalls.
By the FORJ Digital team
Questions clients ask
Do you only work on Shopify?
Shopify is the main ecommerce platform we work on. The recommendation follows what the business needs, including marketplaces such as Amazon where they are part of how the product sells.
Can you take over a store someone else built?
Yes. We review the store, the product structure, the tracking and the campaigns before recommending what should change.
Do you manage the ads as well as the store?
Yes. If the ads are bringing people in but the product page is losing them, more spend will not fix it. Managing Google and Meta alongside the store means we can change whichever one is actually causing the problem.
Tell us about the store
Share the platform, what is being sold and what isn't working. We'll review the store and come back with what we would check first.
Email: info@forjcreative.com.au