THE opposition says there should be no GST on online shopping; the government is under pressure to help an ailing retail sector, and businesses are split on the matter, according to their interests.

The Assistant Treasurer, Bill Shorten, said yesterday the government was not considering imposing the GST on more online sales, despite signalling his concern at the competition faced by Australian retailers.

''Certainly there is no policy proposition about a GST for online shopping, but what is happening is there is a debate emerging from retailers in Australia who feel that the $1000 threshold [under which GST does not apply] is too high,'' Mr Shorten said yesterday.

''We'll have to work something out and see if it is administratively feasible - it is only at that stage.''

Increasing calls by retailers for the government to scrap or lower its $1000 threshold - most recently by Gerry Harvey of Harvey Norman - have created a schism in the industry.

The online trading firm eBay Australia, for instance, offered little sympathy for its conventional competitors yesterday. ''If retailers are struggling or think that they are missing out, then what is holding them back is that they are simply not online or not online in a competitive way,'' an eBay spokesman, Daniel Feiler, said.

In the past year, Australian eBay sales had grown more than 10 times as fast as retail sales, he said.

The chief executive of bookseller Dymocks, Don Grover, said the government needed to level the playing field, otherwise it was basically telling shoppers to buy books overseas.