Rosy e-commerce outlook drives ex-Rich Lister’s move into new shed
Former Young Rich Lister and one-time billionaire Fung Lam says he is “100 per cent” certain e-commerce will only get bigger in Australia, after his New Aim group upgraded into a state-of-the-art warehouse in Melbourne’s west.
The 31,500 square metre automated facility at 90 Melbourne Drive in Truganina – the first completed building in Stockland’s $2 billion Melbourne Business Park – will provide greater capacity for one of the country’s fastest-growing, e-commerce platforms to deliver its more than 400 products to customers and businesses nationwide.
“E-commerce will keep going up, of that I am 100 per cent sure. How fast it will go up I can’t guarantee, but I can guarantee it will go up,” Mr Lam told The Australian Financial Review.
E-commerce, which boomed during the pandemic as people stayed at home and shopped from their living rooms, has been a major driver of demand in the industrial property sector, and a key reason for a national vacancy rate of just 1 per cent and annual rental growth of more than 20 per cent.
The 31,500 square metre facility offers more storage capacity than New Aim’s other warehouses.
But, according to the latest NAB Online Retail Sales Index, the amount of money spent online by Australians in the 12 months to August fell 1.9 per cent to $54 billion – equating to 12.8 per cent of total retail spend – as people returned to their local malls and suburban strips.
However, with almost a quarter of global retail purchases expected to be made online by 2026 – up from 20.8 per cent his year, according to Forbes Advisor – the Australian e-commerce sector appears to have plenty of room for expansion.
Mr Fung said New Aim’s new warehouse will be stocked with its own product range, which includes furniture, gym equipment, bedding and power tools. Everything is sold online.
E-commerce will only grow over time: Fung Lam.
“The move to Melbourne Business Park is an exciting evolution of our company which started as an eBay store in 2003 and is now among the fastest-growing private e-commerce companies in the Asia-Pacific,” Mr Fung said.
“From this new, modern facility, our team will operate our business-to-many model partnering with more than 40 Australian online marketplaces and omnichannel retailers to dispatch goods to business customers and direct consumers across Australia.”
Mr Fung founded New Aim with fellow Melbourne university graduate Werner Liu. The pair built the company into an e-commerce powerhouse that in financial 2021 had $343 million in revenue and a $56 million pre-tax profit.
The two founders parted ways in 2021 when Mr Fung bought out his partner for $101 million.
In 2021, aged 40, he ranked 6th on the AFR Young Rich List worth $1.02 billion and was worth the same amount on the 2022 Financial Review Rich List.
However, with valuations for tech companies slashed since the pandemic, Mr Fung failed to make it on to the 2023 list, despite the cut-off being $690 million.
The New Aim warehouse is the first completed building in the first stage of Stockland’s 260ha Melbourne Business Park, which is expected to have an end value of $2 billion once fully developed.
The warehouse is targeting a 5-Star Green Star rating with a range of sustainability features including rooftop solar, the use of timber products during construction and rainwater collection for irrigation.
Tony D’Addona, Stockland’s executive general manager of logistics, said there were clear, long-term structural drivers for industrial space including from very strong population growth and from e-commerce growth.
“These will support the asset class over the medium and the long term,” he said.
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