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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
June 2023
Released
28/07/2023

Key statistics

The June 2023 seasonally adjusted estimate: 

  • Fell 0.8% month-on-month.
  • Rose 2.3% compared with June 2022.
  • In volume terms, the seasonally adjusted estimate fell 0.5% in the June quarter 2023.

An additional information release on 3 August 2023 has seen the inclusion of more detailed results for the June 2023 reference period. Additional timeseries spreadsheets have been published, including; state by industry results, state by industry sub-group results, June quarter 2023 quarterly turnover volumes, and online sales. 

To understand more about changes in this issue, reinstating trend estimates, and COVID-19, please read the survey impacts and changes section below.

Reinstating Trend Series

The ABS has now reinstated Retail Trade Trend estimates from July 2022 onwards.

For further information, please refer to reinstating trend series in the survey impacts and changes section below.

Turnover at current prices
Jun-2023 ($m)May-2023 to Jun-2023 (% change)Jun-2022 to Jun-2023 (% change)
Trend35,401.60.3na
Seasonally adjusted35,190.2-0.82.3

na not available

Turnover in volume terms
June Qtr 2023 ($m)March Qtr 2023 to June Qtr 2023 (% change)June Qtr 2022 to June Qtr 2023 (% change)
Trend95,549.6-0.6na
Seasonally adjusted95,534-0.5-1.4

na not available

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% ($19.6m) in June, 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 0.1% (-$3.6m) in June, 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 2.2% (-$64.7m) in June, 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 5.0% (-$94.5m) in June, 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 2.2% (-$120.4m) in June, 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 0.3% (-$17.3m) in June, 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 $3,963.4m in June 2023, in seasonally adjusted terms. Seasonally adjusted online sales rose 0.6 per cent ($24.3m), following a rise of 5.0 per cent ($188.4m) in May 2023. Seasonally adjusted through-the-year sales are up 8.6 per cent ($312.9m).

Original sales in June 2023 fell by 1.0 per cent (-$38.1m).

In June 2023, food online sales were $1,151.2m and non-food online sales were $2,812.2m in seasonally adjusted terms. Food sales rose 2.9 per cent ($32.1m) whilst non-food fell 0.3 per cent (-$7.8m).

In original terms, the proportion of online food retailing sales to total food retailing rose from 5.7 per cent to 5.9 per cent. The proportion for online non-food retailing sales to total non-food retailing fell from 17.2 per cent to 17.0 per cent.

In original terms, the proportion of online sales to total retailing rose from 10.9 per cent in May 2023 to 11.0 per cent in June 2023. This proportion is the highest since November 2022, when online sales made up 12.6 per cent of total retailing sales.

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 August 2023. This includes June quarterly retail turnover contained in Tables 5 through to 10. Tables 1 to 4 remain unchanged from their release on 28 July 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

Reinstating trend series

Coronavirus (COVID-19)

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

Post release changes

03/08/2023 - As advertised in the main release of this publication on 28 July 2023, the time series spreadsheets for tables 5 through to 23 are now available under the Data Downloads section. This includes:

  • June 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. Please note that revisions to original chain volume measures for the September quarter 2022 and March quarter 2023 due to changes in the implicit price deflator are reflected in these tables.
  • There are revisions to original estimates of Quarterly retail turnover per capita - current prices in Table 19 due to the incorporation of updated population source data. In addition, please note that for the current June quarter 2023 release, the population estimates used to produce the per capita series are different to the figures published in National, state and territory population due to the continued use of preliminary rebased Estimated Resident Population (ERP) to align with the National Accounts. Retail Trade will move to the final rebased estimates in the September quarter 2023 release concurrently with the Australian System of National Accounts.
  • An online retailing section has been added to this publication, which shows the most-up-to-date online retail sales.
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