Australian-made significantly preferred to Chinese-made
New research by Roy Morgan shows Australians are more likely to buy products across a wide range of industries if they know the product is made in Australia. Only a minority say the same about products they know are made in China.
The largest differences are for food, wine, skin care and cosmetics.
A huge majority, 88%, say they’d be more likely to buy food if they knew it was made in Australia, while only 6% say the same for Chinese-made food. The gap in favour of Australian-made wine is almost as large (72% vs. 4%).
The next largest gaps in favour of Australian-made products are for skin care products (56% vs. 6%) and cosmetics (51% vs. 4%).
Chinese-made products with the best performance include clothes, electrical goods, mobile phones and footwear. At least 20% of Australians indicated they would be more likely to buy these products if they knew they were made in China, although all trailed well behind Australian-made counterparts.
These are the key findings from the Roy Morgan Single Source survey derived from in-depth face-to-face interviews with 1,000 Australians each week and around 50,000 each year.
“There’s been a great deal of discussion in recent months about Australia’s relationship with our largest trading partner, China,” said Roy Morgan CEO Michele Levine. “These results are indicative of the domestic sentiment underlying the overall trade relationship between the two countries, which is heavily weighted in Australia’s favour. Australian exports to China (including Hong Kong) amounted to 1$150 billion in 2018, while Australia imported $82.7 billion in return: a trade surplus of almost $70 billion.
% of people more likely to buy each product if it was made in Australia or China
Source: Roy Morgan Single Source (Australia), Oct. 2018 - Sep. 2019 (n=13,744). Respondents were asked to indicate whether they would be more likely or less likely to buy each type of product made in Australia and the same for China.
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Margin of Error
The margin of error to be allowed for in any estimate depends mainly on the number of interviews on which it is based. Margin of error gives indications of the likely range within which estimates would be 95% likely to fall, expressed as the number of percentage points above or below the actual estimate. Allowance for design effects (such as stratification and weighting) should be made as appropriate.
| Sample Size | Percentage Estimate |
| 40% – 60% | 25% or 75% | 10% or 90% | 5% or 95% | |
| 1,000 | ±3.0 | ±2.7 | ±1.9 | ±1.3 |
| 5,000 | ±1.4 | ±1.2 | ±0.8 | ±0.6 |
| 7,500 | ±1.1 | ±1.0 | ±0.7 | ±0.5 |
| 10,000 | ±1.0 | ±0.9 | ±0.6 | ±0.4 |
| 20,000 | ±0.7 | ±0.6 | ±0.4 | ±0.3 |
| 50,000 | ±0.4 | ±0.4 | ±0.3 | ±0.2 |
