Australian retail sales have shown remarkable resilience in the past few months, flying in the face of rising interest rates and inflation.
The bonanza is set to continue, reports the Australian Retailers Association (ARA) in collaboration with Roy Morgan and Salesforce.
Based on the most comprehensive Christmas insights research to date, the ARA predicts that Australians will spend $63.9 billion in the six-week period from November 14th to December 24th. An increase of 3 per cent over the same period last year.
In breakout figures, the Holiday Insights Hub from Salesforce, one of the world’s most trusted CRM platforms, 33 per cent of festive season sales are likely to occur even before Cyber Week in the first three weeks of November.
Other key data from Salesforce reveals that 84 per cent of sales will take place prior to the week of Christmas. The average discount rate will be highest during Cyber Week and average 22 per cent.
Black Friday and Cyber Monday will again skewer major attention from shoppers and 25 per cent of all holiday sales will take place in the frenzied four day timeframe.
Mobile devices are expected to dominate purchases during the holiday period, adds Salesforce, accounting for 70 per cent of all traffic and 60 per cent of all orders.
Food will be the leading category in the pre-Christmas blowout with sales of $24.79 billion, followed by household goods at $11.289 billion and Other Retailing, which includes beauty, at $9.97 billion.
Hospitality is expected to reach sales of $9.058 billion, followed by clothing and fashion at $5.37 billion and department stores at $3.44 billion.
NSW is set to top the festive season spending ranks at $19.985 billion, followed by Victoria ($16.46 billion), Queensland ($13.262 billion), Western Australia ($7.053 billion), South Australia ($4.1 billion), Tasmania ( $1.3 billion), ACT ( $1.161 billion) and Northern Territory ( $607 million).
Christmas is the most critical time of the year on the retail calendar and given the financial pressure households are under at the moment, we know that many businesses were feeling nervous about a potential downturn in spending over the festive period, notes Paul Zahra, CEO of the ARA.
“Retail sales are running at record levels at the moment and our forecasts show sales will remain strong for the remainder of the year”.
Michele Levine, CEO of Roy Morgan, reinforces the optimistic tone. “Retail sales have been exceptionally strong during the last few months as consumers continue to benefit from the high level of savings built up during the pandemic from extensive Government stimulus programs, and the lowest level of unemployment in decades allows consumers to continue spending despite the financial pressures of inflation and higher interest rates.”
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