MARCH KEY FIGURES

		March 2014	February 2014 to March 2014
		$m	% change
Turnover at current prices
	Trend	23 215.8	0.5
	Seasonally Adjusted	23 149.7	0.1

		March Qtr 2014	December Qtr 2013 to March Qtr 2014
		$m	% change
Turnover in volume terms
	Trend	67 447.2	1.1
	Seasonally Adjusted	67 519.0	1.2

Monthly Turnover, Current Prices - Trend Estimate

Quarterly Turnover, in volume terms - Trend estimate

MARCH KEY POINTS


CURRENT PRICES

• The trend estimate rose 0.5% in March 2014. This follows a rise of 0.6% in February 2014 and a rise of 0.6% in January 2014.
• The seasonally adjusted estimate rose 0.1% in March 2014. This follows a rise of 0.3% in February 2014 and a rise of 1.1% in January 2014.
• In trend terms, Australian turnover rose 6.1% in March 2014 compared with March 2013.
• The following industries rose in trend terms in March 2014: Food retailing (0.5%), Household goods retailing (1.1%), Cafes, restaurants and takeaway food services (1.0%) and Other retailing (0.2%). Department stores (-0.6%) and Clothing, footwear and personal accessory retailing (-0.2%) fell in trend terms in March 2014.
• The following states and territories rose in trend terms in March 2014: New South Wales (0.9%), Victoria (0.5%), Queensland (0.4%), Tasmania (0.6%) and the Northern Territory (0.4%). South Australia and Western Australia were relatively unchanged (0.0%). The Australian Capital Territory (-0.5%) fell in trend terms in March 2014.

VOLUME MEASURES

• In volume terms, the trend estimate for Australian turnover rose 1.1% in the March quarter 2014.

NOTES

FORTHCOMING ISSUES

ISSUE	Release Date
April 2014	3 June 2014
May 2014	3 July 2014
June 2014	4 August 2014
July 2014	4 September 2014
August 2014	1 October 2014
September 2014	4 November 2014

CHANGES IN THIS ISSUE

Backcasting: In October 2013 we updated our stratification benchmarks. In December 2013 we signalled that this may result in a backcasting of data. This note is to advise that a backcast of the level shifts which resulted from the update of stratification benchmarks has now been completed. The consequence of this is that estimates from October 2009 onwards, in original terms, have been revised (with the exception of department stores).

Online Retail Turnover: This issue includes updated online retail turnover estimates for the February 2014 and March 2014 reference months. This series has also been backcast and estimates have been revised to reflect this. These estimates are located in the appendix of this publication.


UPCOMING CHANGES

Introduction of Retail Turnover Per Capita: Following recent interest, a new quarterly measure of total retail turnover per capita will be included in this publication. Whilst this first release is in original terms, future releases will include, original, seasonally adjusted and trend time series estimates in current price terms only. The derivation of these estimates will align with the derivation of GDP per capita in the Australian National Accounts: National Income, Expenditure and Product (Cat. no 5206.0) and Australian System of National Accounts (Cat. no 5204.0). Total Retail Turnover per capita estimates are the ratios of total quarterly Retail turnover to the Estimated Resident Population (ERP) as published in the Australian Demographic Statistics (Cat. no. 3101.0) or ABS projections based on current trend where not yet available. In original terms, the current price measure of total retail turnover per capita for the March quarter 2014 was $2798.20.


REVISIONS

A revision has been applied in this issue to the original estimates for supermarkets and grocery stores retailing. A revision of +$57 million was applied to the January 2013 estimates as a result of updates to survey respondent information.

Revisions to seasonally adjusted estimates are due to revisions to original estimates as well as the concurrent methodology for deriving seasonal factors.


TIME SERIES DATA

Data available from the Downloads tab of this issue on the ABS website include longer time series of tables in this publication, the quarterly chain volume measures and the following additional current price monthly series:

• Retail turnover by state and 15 industry subgroups in trend, seasonally adjusted and original terms
• Retail turnover completely enumerated and sample sector, by six industry groups in original terms
• Retail turnover completely enumerated and sample sector, by state in original terms
• Retail turnover completely enumerated sector, total level in trend, seasonally adjusted and original terms.

INQUIRIES

For further information about these and related statistics, contact the National Information and Referral Service on 1300 135 070 or Amanda Biltoft on Sydney (02) 9268 4642.