Retail Trade, Australia

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Monthly and quarterly estimates of turnover and volumes for retail businesses, including store and online sales.

Reference period
May 2023
Released
29/06/2023

Key statistics

The May 2023 seasonally adjusted estimate: 

  • Rose 0.7% month-on-month.
  • Rose 4.2% compared with May 2022.

An additional information release on 5 July 2023 has seen the inclusion of more detailed results for the May 2023 reference period. Additional timeseries spreadsheets have been published, including; state by industry results, state by industry sub-group results, previously published March quarter 2023 quarterly turnover volumes, and online sales. 

To understand more about changes in this issue, suspension of trend estimates, and COVID-19, please read the survey impacts and changes section below.

Turnover at current prices
May-2023 ($m)Apr-2023 to May-2023 (% change)May-2022 to May-2023 (% change)
Trendnanana
Seasonally adjusted35,524.70.74.2

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Total retail turnover

Analysis by industry

Food retailing

Food retailing rose 0.3% ($46.8m) in May, in seasonally adjusted terms.

Household goods retailing

Household goods retailing rose 0.6% ($32.5m) in May, in seasonally adjusted terms.

Clothing, footwear and personal accessory retailing

Clothing, footwear and personal accessory retailing fell 0.6% (-$18.5m) in May, in seasonally adjusted terms.

Department stores

Department stores fell 0.5% (-$10.3m) in May, in seasonally adjusted terms.

Other retailing

Other retailing rose 2.2% ($119.2m) in May, in seasonally adjusted terms.

Cafes, restaurants and takeaway food services

Cafes, restaurants and takeaway food services rose 1.4% ($76.7m) in May, in seasonally adjusted terms.

Online retailing

Total online retailing sales were $3,908.1m in May 2023, in seasonally adjusted terms. Seasonally adjusted online sales rose 4.3 per cent ($160.3m), following a fall of 1.5 per cent (-$55.2m) in April 2023. Seasonally adjusted through-the-year sales are up 8.0 per cent ($288.4m).

Original sales in May 2023 rose by 12.6 per cent ($422.1m).

In May 2023, food online sales were $1,112.1m and non-food online sales were $2,795.9m in seasonally adjusted terms. Food sales rose 3.8 per cent ($40.9m) whilst non-food rose 4.5 per cent ($119.3m).

In original terms, the proportion of online food retailing sales to total food retailing rose from 5.3 per cent to 5.7 per cent. The proportion for online non-food retailing sales to total non-food retailing rose from 16.1 per cent to 17.2 per cent.

In original terms, the proportion of online sales to total retailing rose from 10.0 per cent in April 2023 to 10.9 per cent in May 2023, with online-only retailers benefiting from a boost in sales from the ‘Click Frenzy Mayhem’ sales event. This proportion is the highest since Black Friday sales lifted the online proportion in November 2022 to 12.6 per cent of total retailing sales.

Additional notes regarding the online sales series can be found in the Methodology.

Data downloads

Tables 5 through to 23 have been made available on 5 July 2023. Tables 1 through to 4 remain unchanged from their release on 29 June 2023.

Time series spreadsheets

Data files

Data Explorer datasets

The data available in Data Explorer is similar to ABS.Stat but with a new interface and added functionality.
For more information about Data Explorer and to see what's changed, see the Data Explorer user guide.

Caution: Data in Data Explorer is currently released after the 11:30am release on the ABS website. Please check the reference period when using Data Explorer.

Retail Trade, Key Statistics - Monthly retail trade estimates for Australian businesses classified by industry group, or by state and territory.

Retail Trade  - Monthly and quarterly retail trade turnover estimates for Australian businesses classified by industry group, sub group, and by state and territory.

Survey impacts and changes

The release schedule for Retail Trade, Australia

Changes in this issue

Suspension of trend series

Coronavirus (COVID-19)

Differences between Retail Trade and New Experimental Economic Indicators

Post release changes

05/07/2023 - As advertised in the main release of this publication on 29 June 2023, the time series spreadsheets for tables 5 through to 23 are now available under the Data Downloads section. This includes:

  • May monthly results for State by Industry Subgroup, Completely Enumerated (large) and Sample (small) businesses, and Online Retail Turnover. 
  • March quarter 2023 results, available in tables 5 through to 10. These results have been published previously. 

In addition, an online retailing section has been added to this publication, which shows the most-up-to-date online retail sales. 

Previous catalogue number

This release previously used catalogue number 8501.0.

Enquiries

For enquiries about these and related statistics, contact the Customer Assistance Service via the ABS website Contact Us page. The ABS Privacy Policy outlines how the ABS will handle any personal information that you provide to us.

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