Retail Trade, Australia

This release has ceased

Monthly and quarterly estimates of turnover and volumes for retail businesses, including store and online sales.

Reference period
June 2025
Release date and time
31/07/2025 11:30am AEST

Key statistics

The June 2025 seasonally adjusted estimate: 

  • Rose 1.2% month-on-month.
  • Rose 4.9% compared with June 2024.
  • In volume terms, the seasonally adjusted estimate rose 0.3% in the June quarter 2025.

Retail Business Survey and Retail Trade Publication Cessation

As previously announced, today’s June 2025 release is the final publication of Retail Trade, Australia. For more information, please visit survey impacts and changes and the Future cessation of the Retail Business Survey and Retail Trade Publication webpage.

To mark the end of the Retail Trade Publication, the ABS has put together an article exploring the evolution of retail trade statistics and interesting insights along the way, in Retail Trade: A journey through 75 years of retail statistics

Monthly statistics on household spending has transitioned to the Monthly Household Spending Indicator (MHSI).

Turnover at current prices
Jun-2025 ($m)May-2025 to Jun-2025 (% change)Jun-2024 to Jun-2025 (% change)
Trend37,676.30.44.2
Seasonally adjusted37,906.61.24.9
Turnover in volume terms
June Qtr 2025 ($m)March Qtr 2025 to June Qtr 2025 (% change)June Qtr 2024 to June Qtr 2025 (% change)
Trend106,038.50.31.5
Seasonally adjusted106,008.50.31.5

Total retail turnover

Trend estimates from March 2020 to June 2022 are not available due to the degree of disruption and volatility caused by COVID-19. Trend estimates throughout the pandemic period are likely to be unhelpful and potentially misleading for users in interpreting underlying trend in retail activity.

Analysis by industry

Food retailing

Food retailing rose 0.9% ($137.5m) in June, in seasonally adjusted terms.

By industry subgroup, the seasonally adjusted estimate:

  • rose 1.2% ($142.5m) for Supermarket and grocery stores.
  • fell 0.1% (-$1.4m) for Other specialised food retailing.
  • fell 0.2% (-$3.5m) for Liquor retailing.

Trend estimates from March 2020 to June 2022 are not available due to the degree of disruption and volatility caused by COVID-19. Trend estimates throughout the pandemic period are likely to be unhelpful and potentially misleading for users in interpreting underlying trend in retail activity.

Household goods retailing

Household goods retailing rose 2.3% ($138.3m) in June, in seasonally adjusted terms.

By industry subgroup, the seasonally adjusted estimate:

  • rose 3.9% ($84.4m) for Electrical and electronic goods retailing.
  • rose 3.0% ($47.7m) for Furniture, floor coverings, houseware and textile goods retailing.
  • rose 0.3% ($6.2m) for Hardware, building and garden supplies retailing.

Trend estimates from March 2020 to June 2022 are not available due to the degree of disruption and volatility caused by COVID-19. Trend estimates throughout the pandemic period are likely to be unhelpful and potentially misleading for users in interpreting underlying trend in retail activity.

Clothing, footwear and personal accessory retailing

Clothing, footwear and personal accessory retailing rose 1.5% ($47.0m) in June, in seasonally adjusted terms.

By industry subgroup, the seasonally adjusted estimate:

  • rose 2.0% ($42.7m) for Clothing retailing.
  • rose 0.4% ($4.3m) for Footwear and other personal accessory retailing.

Trend estimates from March 2020 to June 2022 are not available due to the degree of disruption and volatility caused by COVID-19. Trend estimates throughout the pandemic period are likely to be unhelpful and potentially misleading for users in interpreting underlying trend in retail activity.

Department stores

Department stores rose 1.9% ($36.6m) in June, in seasonally adjusted terms.

Trend estimates from March 2020 to June 2022 are not available due to the degree of disruption and volatility caused by COVID-19. Trend estimates throughout the pandemic period are likely to be unhelpful and potentially misleading for users in interpreting underlying trend in retail activity.

Other retailing

Other retailing rose 1.9% ($114.1m) in June, in seasonally adjusted terms.

By industry subgroup, the seasonally adjusted estimate:

  • rose 2.4% ($63.7m) for Other retailing n.e.c..
  • rose 4.9% ($32.1m) for Other recreational goods retailing.
  • rose 0.7% ($17.9m) for Pharmaceutical, cosmetic and toiletry goods retailing.
  • rose 0.2% ($0.4m) for Newspaper and book retailing.

Trend estimates from March 2020 to June 2022 are not available due to the degree of disruption and volatility caused by COVID-19. Trend estimates throughout the pandemic period are likely to be unhelpful and potentially misleading for users in interpreting underlying trend in retail activity.

Cafes, restaurants and takeaway food services

Cafes, restaurants and takeaway food services fell 0.4% (-$24.5m) in June, in seasonally adjusted terms.

By industry subgroup, the seasonally adjusted estimate:

  • fell 0.6% (-$21.4m) for Cafes, restaurants and catering services.
  • fell 0.1% (-$3.2m) for Takeaway food services.

Trend estimates from March 2020 to June 2022 are not available due to the degree of disruption and volatility caused by COVID-19. Trend estimates throughout the pandemic period are likely to be unhelpful and potentially misleading for users in interpreting underlying trend in retail activity.

Online retailing

Total online retailing sales were $4,703.8m in June 2025, in seasonally adjusted terms. Seasonally adjusted online sales rose 3.9% ($175.4m), following a rise of 0.2% ($9.5m) in May 2025. Seasonally adjusted through-the-year sales are up 13.0% ($542.1m). 

Original online sales rose 5.6% ($246.6m) in June 2025 compared to a fall of 1.5% (-$555.2m) in original total sales.

In June 2025, food online sales were $1,449.9m and non-food online sales were $3,253.9m, in seasonally adjusted terms. Food sales rose 2.5% ($35.0m), and non-food rose 4.5% ($140.5m), seasonally adjusted.

In original terms, the proportion of online food retailing sales to total food retailing rose from 6.9% to 7.2%. The proportion for online non-food retailing sales to total non-food retailing rose from 17.9% to 19.0%.

In original terms, the proportion of online sales to total retailing rose from 11.9% to 12.7%. This compares to 11.6% in June 2024.

Additional notes regarding the online sales series can be found in the Methodology.

Quarterly retail turnover

Per capita retail volumes

Retail volumes on a per capita basis fell 0.1% (-$2.1), following a fall last quarter of 0.4% (-$14.8) after having increased 0.4% ($16.6) in December quarter 2024. The rise in the December quarter 2024 is the the only per capita rise over the past three years. The fall this quarter now sees retail spending on a per person basis down 0.1% (-$4.2) compared to this time last year.

Having peaked in the June quarter 2022, retail volumes per capita are down 6.0% (-$244.7) since the peak, but remains up 3.2% ($118.4) compared to the December quarter 2019, the last quarter prior to the pandemic-period.

Trend estimates from March 2020 to June 2022 are not available due to the degree of disruption and volatility caused by COVID-19. Trend estimates throughout the pandemic period are likely to be unhelpful and potentially misleading for users in interpreting underlying trend in retail activity.

Data downloads

The Survey of Consumer Sales time series spreadsheets (Table 17 & 18) are no longer included in this release. These are now be published as part of Business Indicators, Australia (cat. no. 5676.0), with March quarter 2025 released on 3 June 2025.

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  - 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

Cessation of the Retail Business Survey and Retail Trade Publication

Changes in this issue

Trend series

Differences between Retail Trade and other Economic Indicators

Previous catalogue number

This release previously used catalogue number 8501.0.

Enquiries

For enquiries 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.

Methodology

Scope

This publication presents estimates of the value of turnover of retail trade for Australian businesses. This includes all employing retail trade businesses who predominantly sell to households.

Geography

Data is available for:

  • Australia Total
  • States and territories.

Source

Retail Business Survey

Collection method

The survey includes about 700 large businesses and 2,700 smaller businesses selected by random sample.

The survey is conducted monthly primarily by telephone interview. A small number of questionnaires are mailed.

Concepts, sources and methods

Turnover includes:

  • retail sales
  • online sales
  • wholesale sales
  • takings from repairs, meals & hiring of goods
  • commissions from agency activity

Businesses are classified in terms of the retail industry group and subgroup it mainly operates in.

History of changes

GST was included in turnover from 2000.

View full methodology
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