Aussies renounce imported wine

New research by Roy Morgan shows Australians are 73% more likely to buy wine if it is produced in Australia.

Overall, a huge majority of 90% of Australians aged 14+ say they are more likely to buy products made in Australia up from 88% four years ago.

In the year to September 2018, 60% of Australians aged 14+ said they’d be more likely to buy products made in our closest neighbour New Zealand, up 7% points from 2014. However, the biggest improvement in sentiment over the last four years was for products from Canada. Now 54% of Australians aged 14+ are more likely to buy products made in Canada up from 45% four years ago.

Australian consumers are also much more likely to buy products manufactured in other countries that comprise some of Australia’s leading trading partners compared to 2014 including the UK (up from 55% in 2014 to 60% now), the US (56% to 59%), Germany (48% to 55%), Japan (49% to 55%) and Korea (29% to 33%). All of these five countries are within Australia’s top 10 leading trading partners in 2017/18.

The one notable exception to this trend is with Australia’s largest trading partner overall, including for both imports and exports, China. In the year to September 2018 34% of Australians aged 14+ said they’d be more likely to buy products made in China, down 1% point from four years ago.

Averse to Chinese wine

While our wine exports to China surged 18% to $1.14billion in 2018, to China, the feeling isn't mutual when it comes to Chinese wine. ­

When people surveyed were asked ‘For each of the following products – clothes, food, electrical goods, motor vehicles, sporting goods, wine – would you be more likely to buy it if it was labelled Made in Australia?’ and again for China, the preference for Australian-made goods was overwhelming.

Only 4% of respondents said they’d be more likely to buy Chinese-made wine.

The Chinese-made goods that attract the most support are clothes and electrical goods, although Australian-made versions of these goods are still clearly preferred.

Over a third of Australians (34%) are more likely to buy Chinese-made clothes, although this is less than half the 76% that are more likely to buy Australian-made clothes. Similarly there are 29% of Australians that are more likely to buy Chinese-made electrical goods just fewer than half of the 62% of Australians more likely to buy Australian-made electrical goods.

Michele Levine, CEO, Roy Morgan, said: "Analysing the different product categories shows that Australians are increasingly likely to say they’d be less likely to buy Chinese-made food, wine, motor vehicles, sporting goods, electrical goods and clothes than four years ago – a clean sweep across all major product categories."