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Retail Trade, Australia

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

Reference period
August 2022
Released
28/09/2022

Key statistics

The August 2022 seasonally adjusted estimate: 

  • Rose 0.6% month-on-month.
  • Rose 19.2% compared with August 2021.

An additional information release on 5 October 2022 has seen the inclusion of more detailed results for the August 2022 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. In addition, an online retailing section has been added to this publication which shows the most-up-to-date online retail sales.

To understand more about changes in this issue, suspension of trend estimates, and COVID-19 in August 2022, please read the survey impacts and changes.

Turnover at current prices
Aug-2022 ($m)Jul-2022 to Aug-2022 (% change)Aug-2021 to Aug-2022 (% change)
Trendnanana
Seasonally adjusted34,881.60.619.2

na not available

Total retail turnover

Analysis by industry

Food retailing

Food retailing rose 1.1% ($142.5m) in August, in seasonally adjusted terms. 

Household goods retailing

Household goods retailing rose 2.6% ($157.2m) in August, in seasonally adjusted terms.

Clothing, footwear and personal accessory retailing

Clothing, footwear and personal accessory retailing fell 2.3% (-$68.1m) in August, in seasonally adjusted terms.

Department stores

Department stores rose 2.8% ($52.8m) in August, in seasonally adjusted terms.

Other retailing

Other retailing fell 2.5% (-$137.4m) in August, in seasonally adjusted terms.

Cafes, restaurants and takeaway food services

Cafes, restaurants and takeaway food services rose 1.3% ($65.3m) in August, in seasonally adjusted terms.

Online retailing

Total online retailing sales were $3,532.8m in August 2022, in seasonally adjusted terms. Seasonally adjusted online sales fell 2.2 per cent (-$78.8m), following a fall of 0.7 per cent (-$24.4m) in July 2022. Seasonally adjusted through-the-year sales are down 15.6 per cent (-$654.8m) as online sales were boosted significantly in August 2021, due to the impacts of the Delta outbreak with online sales at a record high at the time. Whilst online sales are down through-the-year, they continue to remain above the level of any month prior to the Delta outbreak.

In August 2022, Food online sales were $995.9m, and Non-Food online sales were $2,536.9m, in seasonally adjusted terms. There were falls in both non-food sales, down 2.4 per cent (-$62.5m), and food sales, down 1.6 per cent (-$16.3m). Despite the falls, both categories also remain above the level of any month prior to the Delta outbreak.

In original terms, the proportion of online sales for non-Food retailing to total non-Food retailing rose from 16.2 per cent to 16.3 per cent. The proportion for online Food retailing remained unchanged at 5.8 per cent.

In original terms, the proportion of online sales to total retailing remained unchanged at 10.6 per cent in August 2022. The average monthly proportion of online sales to total retailing for 2022 remains at 10.6 per cent which is below the peak levels seen at the height of the Delta lockdown in August 2021 (15.0 per cent) and September 2021 (15.3 per cent), but is still significantly above the pre-pandemic levels.

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 2022. Tables 1 through to 4 remain unchanged from their release on 28 September 2022.

Time series spreadsheets

Data files

Data Explorer datasets

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.

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, Key Statistics - Monthly retail trade estimates for Australian businesses classified by industry group, or 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.

Survey impacts and changes

The release schedule for Retail Trade, Australia

Changes in this issue

Suspension of trend series

Coronavirus (COVID-19) in August

Differences between Retail Trade and New Experimental Economic Indicators

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.

Post release changes

05/10/2022 - As advertised in the main release of this publication on 28 September 2022, the time series spreadsheets for tables 5 through to 23 are now available under the Data Downloads section. This includes:

  • August monthly results for State by Industry Subgroup, Completely Enumerated (large) and Sample (small) businesses, and Online Retail Turnover. 
  • June quarter 2022 results, available in tables 5 through to 10. These results have been published previously. 

In addition, an online retailing section has been added to this publication, which shows the most-up-to-date online retail sales.

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