Retail Trade, Australia

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

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Reference period
August 2021
Released
28/09/2021
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Key statistics

The August 2021 seasonally adjusted estimate: 

  • Fell 1.7% month-on-month.
  • Fell 0.7% compared with August 2020.

Release Schedule for Retail Trade, Australia

The Retail Trade, Australia publication has moved to a new release schedule to better accommodate data users’ needs following the discontinuation of Retail Trade, Australia, Preliminary.

An additional information release on 5 October 2021 has seen the inclusion of more detailed results for the August 2021 reference period. Additional timeseries spreadsheets have been published, including; state by industry results, state by industry sub-group results, quarterly turnover volumes, and online sales.

To understand more about any changes to the release schedule, as well as changes in this issue, suspension of trend estimates, and COVID-19 in August 2021, please read the survey impacts and changes.

Turnover at current prices
Aug-2021 ($m)Jul-2021 to Aug-2021 (% change)Aug-2020 to Aug-2021 (% change)
Trendnanana
Seasonally Adjusted29,275.5-1.7-0.7

na not available

Total retail turnover

Analysis by industry

Food retailing

Food retailing rose 2.1% ($269.9m) in August, in seasonally adjusted terms.

Household goods retailing

Household goods retailing fell 2.3% (-$124.5m) in August, in seasonally adjusted terms.

Clothing, footwear and personal accessory retailing

Clothing, footwear and personal accessory retailing fell 15.7% (-$304.4m) in August, in seasonally adjusted terms.

Department stores

Department stores fell 10.2% (-$141.8m) in August, in seasonally adjusted terms.

Other retailing

Other retailing rose 0.8% ($37.3m) in August, in seasonally adjusted terms.

Cafes, restaurants and takeaway food services

Cafes, restaurants, and takeaway food services fell 7.0% (-$239.4m) in August, in seasonally adjusted terms.

Online retailing

Total online retailing sales were $4,196.2m in August 2021, in seasonally adjusted terms. This was the highest level for the monthly online retail sales in the history of this series. In seasonally adjusted terms, the $549m (15.1%) rise was the second largest dollar term rise, following April 2020. 

In August 2021, Food online sales were $1,093.4m, and Non-Food online sales were $3,102.7m, in seasonally adjusted terms. Food sales rose $114.3m (11.7%) in August 2021, the largest increase in dollar terms since the beginning of the timeseries. Non-Food sales rose $434.6m (16.3%) in August 2021, the second largest increase in dollar terms recorded since the beginning of the timeseries, following April 2020.

In original terms, the proportion of online sales for Food retailing was 7.4% in August 2021, the largest proportion recorded over the history of this series. The proportion of online sales for Non-Food retailing was 25.1%, the largest proportion recorded over the history of this series eclipsing the previous record in April 2020 (20.5%).

In original terms, the proportion of online sales for total retailing was 15.0% in August 2021. This was the largest proportion of online sales for total retailing since data has been collected, eclipsing the previous record of 12.6% recorded in July 2021.

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 October 2021. Tables 1 through to 4 remain unchanged from their release on 28 September 2021.

Download all (4.13 MB)

Time series spreadsheets

Data files

ABS.Stat datasets

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

Retail Trade, Key Aggregates - Monthly retail trade turnover estimates for Australian businesses classified by industry, and 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

ABS.Stat is updating and the above datasets are now available in 'Data Explorer'. 
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
The current version of ABS.Stat will be removed at the end of 2021.

Data Explorer datasets

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 - 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 revised release schedule for Retail Trade, Australia

Changes in this issue

Suspension of trend series

Coronavirus (COVID-19) in August

Post release changes

05/10/2021 - As advertised in the main release of this publication on 28 September 2021, the time series spreadsheets for tables 5 through to 23 are now available under the Data Downloads section. This includes August results for: State by Industry Subgroup, Completely Enumerated (large) and Sample (small) businesses, and Online Retail Turnover. Links to ABS.Stat and Data Explorer datasets have also been added to the Data Downloads section. 

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.

Inquiries

For inquiries 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.

Methodology

Retail Trade, Australia methodology, August 2021

Media releases