Australia’s retail sales slip nearly 4% in December

This breaks 11 consecutive months of growth. 

Retail sales in Australia slipped 3.9% in December, the first time after 11 consecutive months of increases, the Australia Bureau of Statistics (ABS) reported. 

This followed a 1.7% rise recorded in November. 

“This is the first monthly fall in retail turnover for 2022, following eleven consecutive monthly rises. Retail turnover remains elevated at its sixth highest level in the series and was up 7.5% through the year,” Ben Dorber, ABS head of retail statistics, said.

“The large fall in December suggests that retail spending is slowing due to high cost-of-living pressures. Retail businesses reported that many consumers had responded to these pressures by doing more Christmas shopping in November to take advantage of heavy promotional activity and discounting as part of the Black Friday sales event.”  

Read more: Black Friday sales drive up Australia’s November retail turnover

Turnover fell in industries previously boosted by November Black Friday sales. Amongst these industries are department stores, which saw the largest fall (-14.3%). 

This is followed by clothing, footwear, and personal accessory retailing (-13.1%), household goods retailing (-7.8%), and other retailing (-4.6%).

Food retailing was the only industry to record a rise in December (+0.3%), whilst cafes, restaurants, and takeaway food services were relatively unchanged from November.