Retail sales fall in December following Black Friday
Australian retail turnover fell 2.7 per cent (seasonally adjusted) in December 2023, according to figures released today by the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS).
This follows a revised rise of 1.6 per cent in November 2023 and a fall of 0.2 per cent in October 2023. Revisions to seasonally adjusted data are larger than usual this month, reflecting improvements in the data as the evolving seasonal pattern becomes clearer.
Ben Dorber, ABS head of retail statistics, said: "The large fall in retail turnover in December was caused by a fall in discretionary spending. Consumers brought forward some of their usual December spending to November to take advantage of Black Friday sales.
“This shift in spending from December to November reflects the growing popularity of Black Friday sales and the impact of cost-of-living pressures, with consumers seeking out bargains and taking advantage of discounts in November.
“While there was a large seasonally adjusted fall in December, retail turnover rose 0.1 per cent in trend terms. This shows that underlying retail spending remains subdued when we look through the volatile movements over recent months in the lead up to Christmas."
Turnover fell in all the non-food industries that had been boosted by Black Friday sales in November. Household goods retailing (-8.5 per cent) had the largest fall, following the largest rise last month. The next biggest drops were in department stores (-8.1 per cent), clothing footwear and personal accessory retailing (-5.7 per cent), and other retailing (-1.1 per cent).
“Retailers told us that trading conditions were slow in early December following the success of Black Friday before picking up again in the lead up to Christmas and Boxing Day sales where discounting activity returned,” Mr Dorber said.
For food-related industries, turnover fell in cafes, restaurants and takeaway food services (-1.1 per cent), while food retailing (0.1 per cent) was the only industry to rise.
Retail turnover fell across the country with large falls in all states and territories, the majority down by more than 2.0 per cent.
Additional information on the December reference period, including quarterly price and volume data, will be released on 6 February 2024.
The ABS would like to thank businesses for their continued support in responding to our surveys.
Media notes
- A media statement on Thursday 23 November 2023 announced that the ABS would be ceasing the publication of Retail Trade, Australia in August 2025. For more information, please visit the Future cessation of the Retail Business Survey and Retail Trade Publication webpage.
- Revisions to seasonally adjusted estimates are due to changes implemented based on reviewing seasonality and the concurrent methodology for deriving seasonal factors. The larger than usual revisions reflect improvements in measuring the impact of Black Friday sales on seasonally adjusted data. For further information, please refer to the article released last month explaining the effect of changes in the seasonality of retail turnover and survey impacts and changes.
- Seasonal adjustment is the process of estimating and removing seasonal effects to allow comparison of data for adjacent months. See methodology for more details.
- The trend series attempts to measure underlying behaviour in retail activity. It is recommended that trend estimates be used alongside the seasonally adjusted headline measure to analyse and understand underlying activity in retail spending over the longer term. See methodology for more details on trend estimates.
- When reporting ABS data you must attribute the Australian Bureau of Statistics (or the ABS) as the source.
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