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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
December 2023
Released
30/01/2024

Key statistics

The December 2023 seasonally adjusted estimate: 

  • Fell 2.7% month-on-month.
  • Rose 0.8% compared with December 2022.
  • In volume terms, the seasonally adjusted estimate rose 0.3% in the December quarter 2023.

The addition of the new data point for December and a review of seasonal adjustment for recent years has led to larger than usual revisions to seasonally adjusted data. For more information, please see Seasonality of retail turnover section below.

An additional release on 6 February 2024 has seen the inclusion of more detailed results for the December 2023 reference period. Additional timeseries spreadsheets have been published, including; state by industry results, state by industry sub-group results, December quarter 2023 turnover volumes, and online sales.

Turnover at current prices
Dec-2023 ($m)Nov-2023 to Dec-2023 (% change)Dec-2022 to Dec-2023 (% change)
Trend35,690.90.11.3
Seasonally adjusted35,187.2-2.70.8
Turnover in volume terms
December Qtr 2023 ($m)September Qtr 2023 to December Qtr 2023 (% change)December Qtr 2022 to December Qtr 2023 (% change)
Trend97,985.4-0.1-1.4
Seasonally adjusted98,301.70.3-1.0

Total retail turnover

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.

Analysis by industry

Food retailing

Food retailing rose 0.1% ($19.5m) in December, in seasonally adjusted terms.

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.

Household goods retailing

Household goods retailing fell 8.5% (-$526.6m) in December, in seasonally adjusted terms.

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.

Clothing, footwear and personal accessory retailing

Clothing, footwear and personal accessory retailing fell 5.7% (-$173.3m) in December, in seasonally adjusted terms.

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.

Department stores

Department stores fell 8.1% (-$160.8m) in December, in seasonally adjusted terms.

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.

Other retailing

Other retailing fell 1.1% (-$58.7m) in December, in seasonally adjusted terms.

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.

Cafes, restaurants and takeaway food services

Cafes, restaurants and takeaway food services fell 1.1% (-$60.2m) in December, in seasonally adjusted terms.

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.

Online retailing

Total online retailing sales were $3,921.0m in December 2023, in seasonally adjusted terms. Seasonally adjusted online sales rose 1.6 per cent ($61.8m), following a rise of 2.8 per cent ($106.5m) in November 2023. Seasonally adjusted through-the-year sales are up 2.8 per cent ($105.0m). 

Original online sales in December 2023 fell 5.0 per cent (-$244.6m).  

In December 2023, food online sales were $1,221.5m and non-food online sales were $2,699.5m, in seasonally adjusted terms. Food sales rose 2.8 per cent ($33.2m) whilst non-food rose 1.1 per cent ($28.7m), seasonally adjusted. 

In original terms, the proportion of online food retailing sales to total food retailing fell from 6.4 per cent to 5.7 per cent. The proportion for online non-food retailing sales to total non-food retailing fell from 19.4 per cent to 15.7 per cent. 

In original terms, the proportion of online sales to total retailing fell from 12.7 per cent in November 2023 to 10.6 per cent in December 2023, a similar fall compared to the same time last year following the Black Friday boost to online sales in the November month.

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 6 February 2024. This includes December quarterly retail turnover contained in Tables 5 through to 10. Tables 1 to 4 remain unchanged from their release on 30 January 2024. 

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

Future cessation of the Retail Business Survey and Retail Trade Publication

Seasonality in retail turnover

Changes in this issue

Trend series

Differences between Retail Trade and other Economic Indicators

Post release changes

06/02/2024 - As advertised in the main release of this publication on 30 January 2024, the time series spreadsheets for tables 5 through to 23 are now available under the Data Downloads section. This includes:

  • December monthly results for State by Industry Subgroup, Completely Enumerated (large) and Sample (small) businesses, and Online Retail Turnover. 
  • December quarter 2023 results, available in tables 5 through to 10. Please note that the quarter results are reflective of changes to the monthly seasonally adjusted series noted in survey impacts and changes above.
  • Updated Quarterly retail turnover per capita in Table 19.

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.

Enquiries

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Methodology

Scope

This publication presents estimates of the value of turnover of retail trade for Australian businesses. This includes all employing retail trade businesses who predominantly sell to households.

Geography

Data is available for:

  • Australia Total
  • States and territories.

Source

Retail Business Survey

Collection method

The survey includes about 700 large businesses and 2,700 smaller businesses selected by random sample.

The survey is conducted monthly primarily by telephone interview. A small number of questionnaires are mailed.

Concepts, sources and methods

Turnover includes:

  • retail sales
  • online sales
  • wholesale sales
  • takings from repairs, meals & hiring of goods
  • commissions from agency activity

Businesses are classified in terms of the retail industry group and subgroup it mainly operates in.

History of changes

GST was included in turnover from 2000.

View full methodology
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