Retail Sales - Cafe Culture Curbs Retail Blues

• Retail spending was stronger than expected in April, rising by 0.4%. While this improvement was an encouraging sign, retail sales remain lacklustre, given a flat result in March.

 

• Our café culture was the bright spot in today’s data. The strongest spending growth in April was in cafes, restaurants & takeaway food services (1.3%), following a decline of 0.8% in March. This was followed by ‘other’ retailing (0.9%), household goods (0.7%) and food retailing (0.3%).

 

• Retail sales growth in April was led by the Northern Territory (2.6%) and Tasmania (0.9%) in April. This was followed by NSW and Western Australia (both at 0.7%), the ACT (0.6%), Victoria (0.3%) and Queensland (0.1%). In South Australia, retail sales fell 0.6% for the month.

 

• In annual terms, Victoria continued to be the fastest growing State for retailing (4.7%), followed by NSW and the Northern Territory (3.6%), the ACT and Tasmania (2.8%) and South Australia (1.8%). In the year to April, growth in retail sales edged up in WA (0.1%) but was flat in Queensland.

 

• Retailing growth is not expected to increase significantly given slow wage growth, softness in the housing market and high levels of household debt. Solid jobs growth over the past year, however, is expected to support retailing. 

 

Please see the attached report for more information.

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