Retail spending steady through February
Australian retail turnover rose 0.2 per cent in February 2025, according to seasonally adjusted figures released today by the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS).
This follows a rise of 0.3 per cent in January 2025 and a fall of 0.2 per cent in December 2024.
Robert Ewing, ABS head of business statistics, said: ‘Retail spending in February remains steady, with mixed results across the industries.’
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.
‘Like the January month, it was food-related spending which drove the rise in retail turnover this month,’ Mr Ewing said.
Both food retailing (+0.6 per cent) and cafes, restaurants and takeaway food services (+0.2 per cent) rose for a second straight month.
Spending in the non-food industries was mixed. Other retailing (-1.0 per cent) fell having seen the largest rise in January (+2.4 per cent). Household goods retailing (-0.3 per cent) also dropped for a second straight month.
‘Following promotion-based growth across the December quarter, spending on household goods continued to moderate with lower discretionary spending to begin the year,’ Mr Ewing said.
This was partly offset by spending growth in department stores (+1.5 per cent) and clothing, footwear and personal accessory retailing (+0.4 per cent).
Retail turnover was up in most states and territories, led by Western Australia (+0.8 per cent), which had its seventh straight monthly rise, and New South Wales (+0.5 per cent).
The ABS would like to thank businesses for their continued support in responding to our surveys.
Media notes
- A media statement on Thursday 23 November 2023 announced that the ABS would be ceasing the publication of Retail Trade, Australia in July 2025. For more information, please visit the Future cessation of the Retail Business Survey and Retail Trade Publication webpage
- Revisions to seasonally adjusted estimates are due to concurrent methodology, which reflects improvements in the data as changes in the seasonal pattern become clearer and distinct from irregular events. For further information, please refer to the article released in November explaining the effect of changes in the seasonality of retail turnover and the seasonality in retail turnover section of survey impacts and changes.
- Seasonal adjustment is the process of estimating and removing seasonal effects to allow comparison of data for adjacent months. See methodology for more details.
- The trend series attempts to measure underlying behaviour in retail activity. It is recommended that trend estimates be used alongside the seasonally adjusted headline measure to analyse and understand underlying activity in retail spending over the longer term. See methodology for more details on trend estimates.
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