Communications Minister, Senator Stephen Conroy, will host an online retail forum in Sydney on February 18.

Harvey Norman’s outspoken chairman, Gerry Harvey, has claimed many retailers will perish unless immediate action is taken to add GST onto Internet transactions of under $1000.

Internet advocacy group, Electronic Frontiers Australia, has launched a counter-campaign against retailers lobbying for online purchases to be taxed.

It’s not a merry Christmas for retailers, according to the Australian Retailers Association (ARA). Its weekly tracking of trade has shown over 65 per cent are trading worse than they were last year at the height of the global financial crisis.

The climate for retail is incredibly flat going into Christmas, as organisations struggle with economic pressures from a number of angles

With the credit crunch continuing to impact the volume of large projects on offer and hardware sales falling off a cliff, there are mixed views on how the end of the financial year will play out.