Apparently Australia had proven itself to be the company's most successful overseas e-commerce market, making it more attractive for opening physical stores, spokesman Craig Nomura told The Australian. "Outside of the US, Australia is our largest e-commerce market, and for a country that only has 23 million people, that's quite impressive," said Mr. Nomura. A direct competitive threat But for homegrown Australian chains, the entry of players such as Williams-Sonoma represents a growing threat just as many are recovering from the GFC lows and wavering consumer confidence. For instance, department store chain Myer ( ASX: MYR ) and Harvey Norman ( ASX: HVN ) have only lately returned to growth in terms of sales, with their share prices also posting strong recoveries. Consider the returns of Myer, Harvey Norman and David Jones (ASX: DJS) in the last year against a 16% in the S&P/ASX 200 index (Index: ^AXJO) (ASX: XJO), as seen in the chart below. Harvey Norman alone is up some 41%.