Australian consumer interest fell short of expectations this past Christmas, even with spending during December 2017 hitting record highs, the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) has revealed.
Clothing was a major concern within the apparel sub-group, as the seasonally adjusted estimate fell 0.5%. Department stores also saw negative results as the seasonally adjusted estimate fell 0.6%.
Footwear and other personal accessory retailing yielded a stronger result, growing 0.9%.
Despite these figures, the National Retail Association (NRA) elected to focus on Australian's record spend of $47.5 billion during the 2017 Christmas period.
The figures closely align with the pre-Christmas forecasts made by the NRA, who predicted $48 billion in sales over Christmas.
NRA CEO Dominique Lamb said the ABS retail trend figures revealed that retail experienced another strong Christmas period.
“For the entire Christmas trade period – which covers half of November and all of December – the ABS figures show there was a record retail spend of $47.5 billion,” Ms Lamb said.
“The final Christmas figures for 2017 are almost identical to those that the NRA released last November when we forecast sales of approximately $48 billion.
“It is clear that Australian retail experienced another strong sales period in Christmas 2017 and this bodes well for retail as we enter the second month of 2018.”
The December 2017 ABS retail figures showed that sales grew by 0.5% in trend terms and rose by 2.0% for the December 2017 quarter compared with 2016.
Clothing, footwear and personal accessories experienced a trend growth of 0.5% for the month.
All states and territories, other than the Northern Territory, recorded a rise in trend terms for December 2017 with the largest increases in South Australia (0.6%) and Victoria (0.5%).