Nearly half of those questioned in a poll said they were going to do more of it in future - and that indicated a much bigger move from bricks-and-mortar stores to online than in any other state or territory.

Take 73-year-old Janet Russell who buys everything from china to glasses to vegetables online: "I've got used to shopping online." She's about to click and buy an Apple TV.

Or take entrepreneur Jack Wang who owns EASI Canberra which he says delivers a thousand meals a day: "It means people can eat what they want."

Or grocery store owner Ruth Roxburgh in Fyshwick: "COVID has definitely sped things up with the up-tick in online shopping."

It seems a whole new economy has been born out of the lockdown - or, if not quite born, then given a big push into a mature life.

Grocer Ruth Roxburgh of Wiffens in Fyshwick Fresh Food Markets said that the store had made online shopping available eight years ago, but it really took off with the lockdown when its online trade trebled.

Mr Wang graduated from Lake Tuggeranong College and the Australian National University.

He decided to set up in the delivery business himself because he didn't have a car of his own and he realised that he couldn't order in food unless the restaurant was close by - delivery companies wouldn't go the extra mile.

He bought the Canberra franchise for a national company called EASI which delivers food and pretty well anything else which can be delivered legally on the back of a bike or in a car.

EASI specialises in deliveries from restaurants but will also pick up the shopping from a supermarket.

Mr Wang said that each day he and the delivery company which he employs ferry a thousand take-away orders to customers within 50 kilometres of the restaurant.

Customers order on an app which has more than 500 Canberra restaurants and their menus to click on.

Restaurants decide on their own charges for delivery - some offer free delivery within a particular radius - and then Mr Wang's company adds its delivery commission (which he says is far less than getting stuff delivered by Uber!)

For Janet Russell, as an elderly person vulnerable to the virus, online shopping offers safety - but it is also easier, particularly for heavy items which neither she nor her husband Andrew (77) can lug home to their apartment on Constitution Avenue.

But COVID is really what drove the couple's changed shopping habits. "I'm cautious about stores. There's a certain trepidation," she said.

She tries to be buy locally from small shops, and she manages to do that for meat - there's a butcher nearby. She shuns the big supermarkets but uses a local IGA.

But for vegetables, it's online. "I wouldn't have gone to vegetable online apart from the lockdown but now I find it very convenient."

She buys from Wiffens whose owner, Ruth Roxburgh, has seen the surge in online trade - but who adds a caveat: the rise has eased because people like shopping in the flesh too.

Online is still up but customers have moved back somewhat since the crisis eased in Canberra.

Ruth Roxburgh sees a place for both. People like the convenience of online for some things but the pleasure of being in a shop for others. Trying on a dress is a special pleasure.

And she thinks it would be a tragedy if local businesses like hers suffered.

"I hope for the sake of Canberra that people stick with their local shops," she said.

Retailers are trying to make it easier and cheaper to buy online.

They notice what they call "shopping cart abandonment" - people putting the stuff in their online shopping trolley and then clicking the site closed before completion.

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"In March 2020 alone, 88 per cent of online shopping orders were abandoned at check-out - primarily because of inflexible delivery options or costs," according to HUBBED, the company which organises pick-ups and drop-offs of goods (and which organised the survey of shopping habits).

The founder of the company, David McLean, said that sellers needed to offer more flexible delivery times, and then online commerce would really take off.

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