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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.

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Reference period
October 2022
Released
28/11/2022
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Key statistics

The October 2022 seasonally adjusted estimate: 

  • Fell 0.2% month-on-month.
  • Rose 12.5% compared with October 2021.

An additional information release on 2 December 2022 has seen the inclusion of more detailed results for the October 2022 reference period. Additional timeseries spreadsheets have been published, including; state by industry results, state by industry sub-group results, September quarter 2022 turnover volumes, and online sales. 

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

Turnover at current prices
Oct-2022 ($m)Sep-2022 to Oct-2022 (% change)Oct-2021 to Oct-2022 (% change)
Trendnanana
Seasonally adjusted35,017.9-0.212.5

na not available

Total retail turnover

Analysis by industry

Food retailing

Food retailing rose 0.4% ($53.8m) in October, in seasonally adjusted terms.

Household goods retailing

Household goods retailing fell 0.5% (-$32.8m) in October, in seasonally adjusted terms.

Clothing, footwear and personal accessory retailing

Clothing, footwear and personal accessory retailing fell 0.6% (-$18.5m) in October, in seasonally adjusted terms.

Department stores

Department stores fell 2.4% (-$46.0m) in October, in seasonally adjusted terms.

Other retailing

Other retailing fell 0.2% (-$13.0m) in October, in seasonally adjusted terms.

Cafes, restaurants and takeaway food services

Cafes, restaurants and takeaway food services fell 0.4% (-$21.9m) in October, in seasonally adjusted terms.

Online retailing

Seasonally adjusted online sales were relatively unchanged (0.0 per cent; $0.8m), following a 0.5 per cent (-$17.4m) fall last month, and a fall of 1.9 per cent (-$69.7m) in August 2022.

Seasonally adjusted through-the-year sales are down 11.6 per cent (-$462.0m). Online sales were at elevated levels this time last year due to the impacts of the Delta outbreak resulting in a peak for online sales levels in September 2021.

Whilst online sales are down through-the-year, they continue to remain above the level average prior to the Delta outbreak.

In October 2022, online Food retailing sales were $1,003.6m, and online Non-Food retailing sales were $2,525.5, in seasonally adjusted terms. There was a rise in online Food retailing sales, up 1.9 per cent ($18.9m), which was offset by a fall in online Non-Food retailing sales, down 0.7 per cent ($18.2m). Both categories remain above the level average of prior to the Delta outbreak.

In original terms, the proportion of online Non-Food retailing sales to total Non-Food retailing rose from 16.1 per cent to 16.7 per cent, whilst the proportion for online Food retailing sales to total Food retailing fell from 5.7 per cent to 5.6 per cent.

In original terms, the proportion of online sales to total retailing rose to 10.7 per cent from 10.5 per cent in October 2022.

The average monthly proportion of online sales to total retailing for 2022 remains at 10.6 per cent. This is below the level seen in October 2021 (13.2 per cent) that was elevated due to lockdown impacts, however, is still significantly above the pre-Covid level in October 2019 of 6.6 per cent.

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 2 December 2022. This includes September 2022 quarterly results for consumer sales of energy retailing and communications services. Tables 1 through to 4 remained unchanged from their release on 28 November 2022.

Download all (4.51 MB)

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 October

Differences between Retail Trade and New Experimental Economic Indicators

Post release changes

02/12/2022 - As advertised in the main release of this publication on 28 November 2022, the time series spreadsheets for tables 5 through to 23 are now available under the Data Downloads section. This includes:

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

  • September quarter 2022 results for consumer sales of energy retailing and communications services.

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

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Methodology

Retail Trade, Australia methodology, October 2022

Media releases