MENCARI - Delivered fearless reporting to you
Posts
🗞️Consumers remain cautious as retail sales decline 0.4 percent

🗞️Consumers remain cautious as retail sales decline 0.4 percent

Today’s email is brought to you by Empower your podcasting vision with a suite of creative solutions at your fingertips.

woman in black long sleeve shirt standing in front of clothes

Despite taking into account the time of year, Australian retail sales dropped 0.4% in March 2024, according to data released today by the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS). Last month, prices went up by 0.2%, and the month before that, they went up by 1%. Ben Dorber, who is in charge of retail statistics at ABS, said, "Consumers cut back on retail spending in March because the cost of living stayed high." “Underlying retail turnover has been flat for the past six months and was up only 0.8 per cent compared to March 2023. Outside of the pandemic period and introduction of the GST, this is the weakest growth on record when comparing turnover to the same time in the previous year.” Mr. Dorber said .

Because COVID-19 caused so much chaos and change, there are no trend estimates available from March 2020 to June 2022. Estimates of trends during the pandemic are not likely to help users figure out what the real trend in retail activity is, and they might even be wrong. Except for food retailing (+0.9%), turnover fell in every industry this month. This shows that retail spending is still somewhat weak. The biggest drops were seen in stores that sell clothes, shoes, and personal accessories (-4.3%) and department stores (-1.6%). Last month, both of these industries saw big gains that have now been mostly cancelled out by these drops.

"The boost in sales that fashion and accessory stores got from Taylor Swift last month was only temporary, as sales went back down right away this month," Mr. Dorber said.

Nothing is free like a free press. Give now to help sustain independent journalism in your community.

It's evident from recent events that there has never been a better moment to support local news. Donate now to help sustain independent reporting.

Household goods retailing (-1.4 per cent), other retailing (-0.3 per cent) and cafes, restaurants and takeaway food services (-0.2 per cent) also recorded falls.

“Retailers told us that overall trading conditions remain challenging with consumers being cautious in their discretionary spending.

“Consumers continue to experience cost of living pressures with price rises in education, healthcare, housing and insurance – see the March quarter CPI for more information,” Mr Dorber said.

Retail turnover growth was mixed across the country. New South Wales (-1.1 per cent) and Victoria (-0.8 per cent) recorded the largest falls and drove the overall fall this month after recording large rises in February.

“The falls in New South Wales and Victoria are larger than the rises last month when both states benefited from increased spending associated with the Taylor Swift concerts.” Mr Dorber said.

“To see the effect of consumer prices on recent turnover growth, it will be important to look at quarterly retail sales volumes which will be released next week,” Mr Dorber said.

Additional information on the March reference period, including quarterly price and volume data, will be released on 7 May 2024.

Got a News Tip?

Contact our editor via Proton Mail encrypted, X Direct Message, LinkedIn, or email. You can securely message him on Signal by using his username, Miko Santos.

🗞️Consumers remain cautious as retail sales decline 0.4 percent

Got a News Tip?

More on The Evening Post AU