The Australian Retailers Association (ARA) and Roy Morgan Research Annual Pre-Christmas Sales Predictions indicate Australian shoppers will spend more than $50 billion in retail stores over the Christmas trading period from November 15 to December 24, 2017.
ARA executive director Russell Zimmerman said although the Australian retail industry has been struggling over the last few months, the ARA and Roy Morgan have tipped Australian consumers to spend 2.8% more on Christmas this year, compared to 2016.
“While the latest retail trade figures have shown a considerable decline, our combined Christmas sales forecast with Roy Morgan demonstrate that Christmas sales will be a little bit better than recent figures; unfortunately this estimate is still well below the 4-5% growth that retailers would like to see this Christmas,” Zimmerman said.
“As online retailing continues to grow, we predict online gift purchases to increase by 3.96%, and expect Australian shoppers to purchase most of their gifts online this year.”
Food and liquor retailers will also see a substantial trade this Christmas with the ARA and Roy Morgan predicting a 3.27% increase from 2016 sales. Although soft by Christmas standards, these figures remain reasonably strong.
With the Christmas season centred around quality time with family and friends, restaurant and café retailers will also see an increase in sales this year as the hospitability category is expected to grow by a modest 2.89%.
Amongst the states, Victoria, New South Wales and Tasmania will have a considerable Christmas trade this year, with these three regions showing the strongest predicted growth across the country.
“Although we have seen retail sales slowly decline across all categories, we believe Christmas will see this year’s trade improve for many Australian retailers,” Zimmerman said.
“There may have been a lot of change throughout the industry this year, but one thing is for sure, and that’s the fact that Australian’s love Christmas, as Christmas is the season of giving.”
The ARA proudly continues to partner with Roy Morgan Research to deliver the only professionally researched retail figures in the industry annually, with proven year-on-year results.