By the Australian Bureau of Statistics
Today marks the end of the Retail Trade publication with the ABS publishing its 771st and final monthly retail trade estimate.
Where it started … origins
Retail trade was first collected as a Census of Retail Establishments in 1947-48, run every five years, then later as a quarterly sample survey of retail establishments introduced in 1950.
In April 1961, monthly estimates for Australian retail sales were first produced with the establishment of Retail Sales of Goods: Australia. This included provisional monthly figures until quarterly estimates were confirmed and published three months after the end of the current quarter.
In April 1982, a new series of monthly estimates were introduced with variations to the scope of the collection and the introduction of state and seasonally adjusted estimates.
Now known as Retail sales of goods (excluding motor vehicles, parts, petrol, etc.), this new series provided retail sales estimates for all retail establishments in subdivision 48 (Retail Trade) of the Australian Standard Industrial Classification (ASIC), 1978 Edition.
Exclusions included bread and milk vendors and electrical appliance repairers but included cafes and restaurants, hotels considered drinking places, and hairdressers.
Further changes in 1988 and 1994 saw the retail trade series evolve to what the core series is today. These enhancements included retail turnover from all sources, providing a broader indicator of consumer spending.
Coverage was also expanded to include the Northern Territory, with trend estimates extended to include current price estimates, and quarterly constant price estimates. Seven industry groups were introduced in 1994, with a focus on month-to-month movements of seasonally adjusted data.
The most recent significant change came in July 2009 where Retail Trade was published using revised industry classifications in-line with Australian and New Zealand Standard Industrial Classification (ANZSIC) 2006.
This aligned the scope of the retail series with the Retail trade division of ANZSIC 2006 with industry groupings as we know them today with six industry groups and 15 detailed industry subgroups.
Changes in the Retail Landscape
Since 1982, the series has covered the highs and lows of the Retail industry and consumer spending. The most significant monthly movements typically aligning with significant events, such as the introduction of the Goods and Services Tax (GST) in 2000.
The month before the tax was introduced, households increased their spending by 8.1 present in June 2000, then sharply pulled back 10.6 percent in the month of July 2000.
The GST was quickly followed by increased spending driven by the 2000 Summer Olympics in Sydney a few months later.
The Global Financial Crisis in 2008 and subsequent stimulus payments to households in early 2009 also saw large movements.
Australian recessions in the early 1980s and early 1990s are visible in Retail data, when households pulled back on their retail spending.
These movements during tough economic times were insignificant compared to the volatility in retail numbers seen during the COVID-19 Pandemic and subsequent lockdowns in 2020-2021.
Highlighted by the largest ever monthly fall in April 2020 during nationwide lockdowns where retail sales fell 17 percent. This was then followed immediately by the largest increase on record, a sharp rise of 16 percent in May 2020 when restrictions eased.
The Retail Business Survey has been able to measure changes in consumer behaviour and trading regulations over time, particularly the level of trading activity on a given day of the week.
Retail trade uses trading day factors, which reflect the weight of activity for each day of the week compared to the others.
Where activity on a particular day increases over time, the trading day factor will also increase to reflect this growth. For example, in the 1970s, late-night shopping on a Thursday night was introduced, becoming widely popular as it made it convenient for shoppers to run errands after work or school on pay day.
Thursday night shopping is now entrenched into normal retail trading hours having extended to late-night shopping on Fridays.
Sunday trading has also become more popular than it was 40 years ago as trading laws making Sunday trading illegal in the 1980s changed.
Throughout the decade, major retailers lobbied for Sunday trading, and in the 1990s, restrictions softened, and trading on Sunday became more permissible.
More retailers chose to open on Sundays and shoppers voted with their feet, with Sunday trading growing in popularity and retail activity increasing more over the years.
Rise of online shopping
The ABS enhanced the retail collection in 2013 by adding an online retailing question to estimate the proportion of turnover derived from domestic online sales.
With the rise in popularity of online shopping growing steadily, there was a gap in measuring online turnover across the retail industry. Only the turnover for retailers with their primary business activity as an online retailer was being collected.
The enhancement would now capture the online portion of all retail sales and measure the growth of online shopping.
Preliminary results in May 2013 showed that 1.8 percent of retail turnover was from online channels. At the time, online shoppers were typically of a younger demographic purchasing smaller, more shippable items.
Since then, online shopping has continued to grow steadily each year as consumers became more comfortable shopping online. The introduction of Black Friday, over 10 years ago, further accelerated the growth of online sales.
Evolution of Black Friday
Black Friday has evolved, becoming a significant event in the Australian retail calendar. Having started in the United States as a one-day sale for niche online businesses, it is no longer a one-day only online event.
Firstly, the addition of Cyber Monday saw it become a weekend event when we saw more mainstream businesses participating, expanding further to include physical retail stores.
In more recent years, retailers have extended sales beyond the traditional weekend period, running early access or members only Black Friday promotions, with some also extending sales across the whole month and re-branding it Black November.
As traditional sales events were typically tied to physical brick and mortar locations, advances in technology and changes in retail practices have seen them lessen in significance over time. This has seen retailers move away from static traditional sales periods such as mid-year stock-take sales, EOFY sales and Boxing Day sales to a more dynamic approach.
Spending typically reserved for Boxing Day sales has now shifted forward into the November month, while consumers can hold off on mid-year purchases knowing discounts prior to Christmas will be available.
These trends have become increasingly noticeable in relation to Black Friday spending on discretionary items such as electronics, clothing, furniture, footwear and household goods.
Retail and the COVID-19 Pandemic
The COVID-19 pandemic throughout 2020 and 2021 had a significant impact on the retail industry and consumer spending.
At the time, as the pandemic unfolded, the economic implications were highly uncertain. The ABS moved to provide a range of additional products, over and above the existing releases, to help measure the impact in a timely manner.
This included the publishing of a preliminary retail turnover estimate, first published on 18 March 2020. This estimate was published two weeks after the end of each month, providing a timely insight of real time impacts of the pandemic prior to the final monthly estimate, published two weeks later.
The preliminary estimate was published over 17 months, ceasing in June 2021. To accommodate data user’s needs of more timely data, going forward, key retail statistics were released earlier than they had been prior to the pandemic.
Impacts on food-related spending
As the pandemic began to unfold in March 2020, nationwide health regulations introduced to encourage social distancing heavily impacted on retail trade.
Several retailers closed physical stores due to restrictions. Immediately, there was unprecedented demand in essential grocery items.
“Panic buying” set in as concerns over shortages grew, while there was a sharp decline in discretionary spending due to physical stores closing and people unable to move around freely.
“Panic buying” across the country left supermarket and grocery store shelves bare as households stockpiled large quantities of essential items during lockdowns.
This practice became a common theme throughout the pandemic period. Conversely, dining out fell sharply due to cafes, restaurants and takeaway food retailers closed temporarily.
Impact on online shopping
The pandemic further accelerated the popularity of online sales, including click-and-collect and online food delivery platforms. This was both out of necessity, with people who usually would not shop online now doing so due to regulations, while retailers also had to adapt very quickly during the pandemic.
Retailers who did not have an online platform or presence had to move into that space, i.e., restaurants and cafes now using food delivery platforms as their shopfronts were closed, while others invested in building their online presence further.
As a result, online sales as a proportion of total retail turnover lifted during the pandemic. While this has since moderated, much of the growth has been sustained.
Australia’s online sales as a proportion of total retail is now 5 percent higher than it was pre-pandemic, having gone from 6.3 percent in 2019 to 11.4 percent in 2024.
The pandemic boost to online shopping growth has also been seen in other countries.
Although there are differences in scope of the estimates collected, the United Kingdom and the United States of America have also had a large jump in online sales as a proportion of total retail sales since 2020 due to the pandemic, with growth also maintained beyond the pandemic period and well above what it was prior.
Impact on discretionary retail categories
There were large fluctuations and swings in discretionary spending throughout the pandemic period. Large falls in discretionary spending during lockdowns were swiftly followed by sharp rises once restrictions eased or ended and physical stores re-opened with consumers spending big.
This was particularly noticeable in clothing, footwear and personal accessory retailing, department stores and cafes, restaurants and takeaway food services.
Safety measures and lockdowns did lift discretionary spending in household goods and other retailing. People who were unable to travel and were spending extended periods at home, chose to upgrade furniture, their electrical items and renovate spaces.
Impact on large and small businesses
Larger businesses outperformed smaller businesses at the start of the pandemic period. This was due to larger businesses with a national presence and distribution network being in a better position to pivot and meet the increase in demand for online sales.
For example, there are numerous smaller businesses in the Cafes, restaurants and takeaway food services industry, which were hit hard by the pandemic and physical store closures.
While in industries that saw increases such as food retailing and household goods, the larger businesses captured most of these extra sales.
Smaller businesses did bounce back in the longer term as consumers returned to physical stores when restrictions were lifted. They were also able to navigate future waves and shocks having learnt and adapted new practices since the initial wave.
Cash is no longer king
While cash usage was already gradually decreasing as electronic payments increased in line with technology enhancements, the COVID-19 pandemic accelerated the decline of consumers using cash.
The concern over transmission and safety measures in place during COVID-19 restrictions saw retailers opting towards card-only in-person transactions. Consumers embraced this, especially for smaller payments.
This further shift in consumer preferences away from cash now sees card transactions more firmly entrenched in spending patterns, enabling the ABS to move towards spending indicators using card data.
Changes in household expenditure patterns
Retail Trade has historically been an important indicator series for some of Household Final Consumption Expenditure (HFCE) in the Australian System of National Accounts (ASNA).
In line with the cessation of the Retail Business Survey, the ABS progressively replaced retail trade as a direct input into the national accounts over four waves in 2024 and 2025.
Over time, expenditure on retail categories has fallen as spending patterns for Australians have gradually shifted from goods to services.
Core retail categories such as food, clothing, furnishings and household items have fallen in terms of their relative contribution to total household expenditure.
In 1960, these categories combined represented 36.4 percent of total annual HFCE, falling steading over the years to 17.6 percent in 2024.
Other retail categories have also fallen, but not to the same extent.
Over the years, the evolving change in expenditure patterns away from retail categories for Australian households has included:
- Technological changes and the rise in prominence of spending on internet and data plans, mobile phone plans and Pay TV streaming services.
- An increase in services spending such on personal care, childcare, health care and education.
- Rising housing costs as rents, electricity, gas, water and fuel costs have risen taking up a larger share of household expenditure as necessity-based expenses.
Historically, food spending represented the largest share of household expenditure for several decades, accounting for 16.5 percent of total annual HFCE in 1964.
This has now fallen to 9.7 percent in 2024 and is no longer the largest household expense. Housing costs are now the largest household expense, rising from 12.6 percent of total HFCE in 1964 to 24.1 percent in 2024.
What next…
Although the Retail Business Survey has ended, it has been a valuable measure of retail industry performance and household spending.
Changes in consumer behaviour and improved data availability have enabled the ABS to transition to using administrative data sources, which offers broader coverage of household spending, while reducing reporting burden on Australian businesses.
Moving to the Monthly Household Spending Indicator (MHSI) will provide users with a more comprehensive view on household consumption across goods and services by Australian households across multiple industries, not just retail.
Farewell and thank you
The ABS would like to thank all the retail businesses who have contributed over the past 75 years for their continued support in responding to the Retail Business Survey.
The ABS appreciates and values your participation and commitment in enabling the ABS to deliver high-quality retail statistics to the Australian Public, telling your story and adding meaning to the numbers.
Thank you.
