Retail sales rise for third straight month
Australian retail turnover rose 0.6 per cent in October 2024, according to seasonally adjusted figures released today by the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS).
This comes after growth of 0.1 per cent in September 2024 and 0.7 per cent in August 2024.
Robert Ewing, ABS head of business statistics, said: “After a steady result last month retailers told us that sales activity grew in October ahead of the Black Friday sales.
“The stronger than usual October month saw some retailers enticing buyers to spend early with discounting, particularly on discretionary items.”
Trend estimates from March 2020 to June 2022 are not available due to the degree of disruption and volatility caused by COVID-19. Trend estimates throughout the pandemic period are likely to be unhelpful and potentially misleading for users in interpreting underlying trend in retail activity.
Turnover results were mixed across the industries.
The non-food industries had significant rises for both other retailing (+1.6 per cent) and household goods retailing (+1.4 per cent).
“The rise in discretionary spending was driven by online discounting events while people also spent more on electrical goods, particularly televisions and other audio-visual equipment,” Mr Ewing said.
There were falls in clothing, footwear and personal accessory retailing (-0.6 per cent) and department stores (-0.3 per cent).
Both food-related industries rose. Cafes, restaurants and takeaway food services (+0.3 per cent) had its third straight monthly rise, while food retailing (+0.3 per cent) bounced back, having seen a small fall last month.
“The bounce back in food retailing is being driven by liquor retailers. This month liquor rose by 1.7 per cent, which sees liquor turnover return to a similar level as July 2024,” Mr Ewing said.
Retail turnover saw growth across the country with all states and territories rising, except for the Northern Territory (-0.5 per cent).
‘The strongest percentage rises this month were seen in South Australia with 1.3 per cent, Tasmania at 1.1 per cent, and Victoria with 0.9 per cent,” Mr Ewing said.
The ABS would like to thank businesses for their continued support in responding to our surveys.
Media notes
- Revisions to seasonally adjusted estimates are due to concurrent methodology, which reflects improvements in the data as changes in the seasonal pattern become clearer and distinct from irregular events. For further information, please refer to the article released in November explaining the effect of changes in the seasonality of retail turnover and the seasonality in retail turnover section of 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.
- A media statement on Thursday 23 November 2023 announced that the ABS would be ceasing the publication of Retail Trade, Australia in July 2025. For more information, please visit the Future cessation of the Retail Business Survey and Retail Trade Publication webpage
- When reporting ABS data you must attribute the Australian Bureau of Statistics (or the ABS) as the source.
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