$100 for free and fast delivery. Around 60 million US households have signed up for Amazon Prime.

The company also has a service called Amazon Now, which promises to deliver products such as groceries in under an hour.

Citi's managing director and head of consumer sector research Craig Woolford said Australian retailers need to be better prepared.

"It's hard to say that retailers in Australia are really ready for Amazon," he said.

"Amazon has disrupted a number of markets and in each case overseas we've seen retailer profitability and sales shift to Amazon."

Amazon is expected to set prices lower, but Mr Woolford said there is unlikely to be a price war.

"Amazon tends to enter a market and be quite disruptive, however they aren't in the business of losing money into perpetuity," heFaustin Betbeder

Faustin

(1847 - 1914?, France)

Simple histoire (L'Eclipse 135, 21 August 1870)

Faustin Betbeder was a French caricaturist born in Soissons in 1847. He was especially known for his sets of lithographs with unflattering caricatures of personalities from the Franco-Prussian war. These also included a set about the women in besieged Paris ('Les femmes de Paris assiégé - Idylles et Epopées'). Faustin's prints were refused by papers, but did sell over 50,000 copies when the artist published them himself.

Betbeder, who mainly signed with his first name, also published his work in satirical magazines like Le Grelot and L'Éclipse. He moved to Britain after war, where he was a caricaturist with The London Sketch-book from 1873 until 1874.