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
April 2022
Released
27/05/2022

Key statistics

The April 2022 seasonally adjusted estimate: 

  • Rose 0.9% month-on-month.
  • Rose 9.6% compared with April 2021.

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

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

Turnover at current prices
Apr-2022 ($m)Mar-2022 to Apr-2022 (% change)Apr-2021 to Apr-2022 (% change)
Trendnanana
Seasonally adjusted33,923.10.99.6

na not available

Total retail turnover

Analysis by industry

Food retailing

Food retailing rose 1.9% ($243.1m) in April, in seasonally adjusted terms.

Household goods retailing

Household goods retailing fell 2.7% (-$164.9m) in April, in seasonally adjusted terms.

Clothing, footwear and personal accessory retailing

Clothing, footwear and personal accessory retailing rose 3.1% ($88.6m) in April, in seasonally adjusted terms.

Department stores

Department stores fell 2.5% (-$45.7m) in April, in seasonally adjusted terms.

Other retailing

Other retailing rose 0.5% ($27.3m) in April, in seasonally adjusted terms.

Cafes, restaurants and takeaway food services

Cafes, restaurants and takeaway food services rose 3.3% ($148.5m) in April, in seasonally adjusted terms.

Online retailing

Total online retailing sales were $3,676.2m in April 2022, in seasonally adjusted terms. Seasonally adjusted online sales fell 1.3% (-$48.7m). This is the fourth monthly fall in online sales in the six months since state lockdowns ended in October 2021. Online sales whilst down from their peak, remain above the pre-Delta outbreak level. Total online retailing turnover remains elevated, up 24.4% ($718.8m) through-the-year, in seasonally adjusted terms. 

In April 2022, Food online sales were $1,065.8m, and Non-Food online sales were $2,610.4m, in seasonally adjusted terms. Total seasonally adjusted online fell 1.3% (-$48.7m). Non-Food sales were down 2.5% (-$66.4m), whilst Food sales rose 1.7% ($17.7m). 

In original terms there were falls in the proportion of online sales for both Food and non-Food retailing to total retailing. The proportion of online Food sales fell to 5.5% in April 2022 from 5.9% in March 2022, while the proportion of online non-Food sales fell to 15.4% in April 2022 from 16.7% in March 2022.

In original terms, the proportion of online sales to total retailing fell 0.9%, from 10.9% in March 2022 to 10.0% in April 2022. This is the lowest proportion of online sales to total retailing since May 2021, the last month prior to the Delta outbreak.

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 June 2022. This includes March 2022 quarterly results for consumer sales of energy retailing and communications services. Tables 1 through to 4 remain unchanged from their release on 27 May 2022. 

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 revised release schedule for Retail Trade, Australia

Changes in this issue

Suspension of trend series

Coronavirus (COVID-19) in April

Differences between Retail Trade and New Experimental Economic Indicators

Previous catalogue number

This release previously used catalogue number 8501.0.

Inquiries

For inquiries 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

02/06/2022 - As advertised in the main release of this publication on 27 May 2022, the time series spreadsheets for tables 5 through to 23 are now available under the Data Downloads section. This includes:

  • April monthly results for State by Industry Subgroup, Completely Enumerated (large) and Sample (small) businesses, and Online Retail Turnover.  
  • March quarter 2022 results, available in tables 5 through to 10. These results have been published previously.
  • March quarter 2021 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.

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