Australian shoppers to spend more for clothing, footwear

Spending in these products could reach US$44.7b in 2026.

Shoppers in Australia are expected to shell out more money on clothing and footwear in the medium term as more consumers look to shop online, Fitch Solutions reported.

Data showed that spending in clothing and footwear could reach up to US$32.8b in 2026 from only US$28.4b in 2022. This reflects an average increase of 3.9% annually.

“With the Australian consumer increasingly looking to do their shopping online, particularly for non-essential items, brands see an opportunity to capture the growing market of consumers spending more while shopping for clothing online,” the report read in part.

For instance, Fitch noted that American clothing retailer GAP is planning to return to the Australian market this year through an online store after it left in 2018. GAP will only be operating an online store and will not open a physical store.

This shows that the role of e-commerce was more prominent for non-food retail than food retail.

In 2021, online sales of non-food products grew from US$21.8b, up from only US$11b in 2019; whilst the online retail sales for food products rose to US$8.4b in 2021 from US$4b in 2019.

“Whilst the growth of online sales of non-food products and food-products are both approximately double in 2021 than that of 2019, the dollar value of online sales of non-food products is almost thrice that of food products,” Fitch also said.