Despite the continuing drop in retail apparel sales compared to 2010, the latest industry specific figures have revealed a slight increase month on month.
The Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) today released its monthly estimates of turnover for retail across the country as well as trend, seasonally adjusted and original estimates for industry groups and states.
In current prices, the trend estimate for the clothing, footwear and personal accessory retailing sector fell 0.7 per cent in October 2011, but the seasonally adjusted estimate rose monthly by 1.2 per cent.
The Australian Retailers Association executive director, Russell Zimmerman, said he was pleased to see a monthly boost for fashion retailers of 1.2 per cent, which he attributes to people spending for the spring racing carnival and other spring events.
“However, the monthly boost doesn’t put clothing retailers in the clear as they struggle with sales still 2.2 per cent below last year,” Zimmerman said.
The seasonally adjusted estimate for Australian retail turnover as a whole rose 0.2 per cent in October, following a rise of 0.4 per cent in September 2011 and a rise of 0.6 per cent in August 2011.
“We know that 54 per cent of retailers are already going down the path of putting goods on sale before Christmas in order to entice customers into the store, and 65 per cent of retailers expect sales not to be as high as last year,” Zimmerman said.