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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
February 2023
Released
28/03/2023

Key statistics

The February 2023 seasonally adjusted estimate: 

  • Rose 0.2% month-on-month.
  • Rose 6.4% compared with February 2022.

An additional information release on 3 April 2023 has seen the inclusion of more detailed results for the February 2023 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 changes in this issue, suspension of trend estimates, and COVID-19 in February 2023, please read the survey impacts and changes section below.

Turnover at current prices
Feb-2023 ($m)Jan-2023 to Feb-2023 (% change)Feb-2022 to Feb-2023 (% change)
Trendnanana
Seasonally adjusted35,141.40.26.4

na not available

Total retail turnover

Analysis by industry

Food retailing

Food retailing rose 0.2% ($28.5m) in February, in seasonally adjusted terms.

Household goods retailing

Household goods retailing was relatively unchanged 0.0% ($2.5m) in February, in seasonally adjusted terms.

Clothing, footwear and personal accessory retailing

Clothing, footwear and personal accessory retailing rose 0.6% ($18.2m) in February, in seasonally adjusted terms.

Department stores

Department stores rose 1.0% ($17.9m) in February, in seasonally adjusted terms.

Other retailing

Other retailing fell 0.4% (-$20.7m) in February, in seasonally adjusted terms.

Cafes, restaurants and takeaway food services

Cafes, restaurants and takeaway food services rose 0.5% ($25.5m) in February, in seasonally adjusted terms.

Online retailing

Total online retailing sales were $3,934.1m in February 2023 in seasonally adjusted terms. Seasonally adjusted online sales rose 1.9 per cent ($73.5m), following a rise of 0.3 per cent ($12.1m) in January 2023. Seasonally adjusted through-the-year sales are up 6.9 per cent ($254.3m).

Original sales in February 2023 fell by 8.3 per cent (-$294.7m).

In February 2023, food online sales were $1,064.8m and non-food online sales were $2,869.4m in seasonally adjusted terms. Food sales rose 0.8 per cent ($8.2m) and non-food rose 2.3 per cent ($65.4m).

In original terms, the proportion of online food retailing sales to total food retailing rose from 5.2 per cent to 5.4 per cent. The proportion for online non-food retailing sales to total non-food retailing rose from 16.7 percent to 16.9 per cent.

In original terms, the proportion of online sales to total retailing rose from 10.3 per cent in January 2023 to 10.4 per cent in February 2023. In February 2022 this proportion was 10.4 per cent, compared to 5.8 per cent in February 2019. Proportion of online sales have averaged at 10.7 per cent over the past year, suggesting that online sales elevated during the pandemic have now settled at a new level.

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 3 April 2023. Tables 1 through to 4 remain unchanged from their release on 28 March 2023. 

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 February

Differences between Retail Trade and New Experimental Economic Indicators

Previous catalogue number

This release previously used catalogue number 8501.0.

Enquiries

For enquiries 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

03/04/2023 - As advertised in the main release of this publication on 28 March 2023, the time series spreadsheets for tables 5 through to 23 are now available under the Data Downloads section. This includes:

  • February monthly results for State by Industry Subgroup, Completely Enumerated (large) and Sample (small) businesses, and Online Retail Turnover. 
  • December 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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