8501.0 - Retail Trade Trends, Australia, Jul 2008  
ARCHIVED ISSUE Released at 11:30 AM (CANBERRA TIME) 09/09/2008   
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Significant changes have been made to the Retail Business Survey design. Please see Feature article for more details.


JULY KEY FIGURES

Jul 08
Jun 08 to Jul 08
Jul 07 to Jul 08
$m
% change
% change
Turnover at current prices
Trend estimates
18 231.5
0.1
3.1

Monthly turnover, Trend estimates - % change
Graph: Monthly turnover, Trend estimates—% change



JULY KEY POINTS
  • The trend estimate of turnover for the Australian Retail series increased by 0.1% in July 2008. This follows a revised increase of 0.1% for each of the last three months (as at June 2008 the trend estimates on the new survey basis would have been 0.0%, for each of the last three months).
  • In July 2008, industries that had an increase in trend estimate were Food retailing (+0.2%), Department stores (+0.1%), Household good retailing (+0.6%) and Other retailing (+0.3%). Clothing and soft good retailing (-0.3%) and Cafes, restaurants and takeaway food services (-0.7%) had a decline in the trend estimate.
  • All States, except New South Wales (-0.2%) and the Australian Capital Territory (-1.1%), had an increase in the trend estimate. States with the largest increase in the trend estimate were Northern Territory (+1.2%), Western Australia, Tasmania (both +0.7%) and South Australia (+0.6%).
  • The trend estimate for the Australian retail series increased by 3.1% for July 2008 compared with July 2007.
  • The trend estimate for Chains and other large retailers (which are completely enumerated) increased by 0.3% in July 2008 compared to June 2008 and 5.7% for July 2008 compared to July 2007.


NOTES

FORTHCOMING ISSUES

ISSUE Release Date
August 2008 30 September 2008
September 2008 3 November 2008
October 2008 2 December 2008
November 2008 7 January 2009
December 2008 4 February 2009
January 2009 3 March 2009



CHANGES IN THIS ISSUE

Major changes have been implemented in this issue, reducing the level of detail available monthly. For more information, refer to the Feature article, Changes to monthly retail trade statistics.

These changes have resulted in revisions to original series from January 2003 to June 2008. In addition, the seasonally adjusted and trend series have been updated following the normal annual review of the seasonal adjustment process.


TIME SERIES DATA

The following trend, seasonally adjusted and original series are available from the Downloads tab of this issue:
  • Retail turnover by state
  • Retail turnover by industry
  • Retail turnover completely enumerated sector, total level.

Also available are standard errors by state and industry.


INTERPRETING MONTHLY MOVEMENTS

Due to the smaller sample size and new sampling methodology introduced from July 2008, there will be increased volatility in all series. The original and seasonally adjusted series will be most affected, as a result, the original and seasonally adjusted series are considered of limited use for measuring month to month movements. The ABS recommends using the trend series for this analysis.


NEW QUARTERLY PUBLICATION

More detailed quarterly industry and state estimates will be available from Retail Trade Quarterly Indicators, Australia (cat. no. 8502.0). The first issue of this publication, September quarter 2008, is scheduled for release on 17 November 2008.


INQUIRIES

For further information about these and related statistics, contact the National Information and Referral Service on 1300 135 070 or Rod Cowie on Canberra (02) 6252 6720.