Sales in fashion, footwear and jewellery have fallen across Westfield shopping centres in the first quarter of FY24.
According to Westfield's parent company Scentre Group, fashion slipped by 3.3%, footwear by 2% and jewellery by 7.4%, all against the same period in 2022.
For the first nine months of 2023 to September 30, jewellery sales were down 6.5%, while fashion and footwear were up by 0.6% and 3.5% respectively.
Meanwhile, department stores sales were down by 5.1% for the quarter and 0.2% for the first nine months of 2023, while discount department stores were up in both periods - 2.7% and 5.3% respectively.
The only other sectors to record declines in both the quarter and the first nine months were homewares and ‘other’, which include gifts and souvenir shops.
When compared to 2019, all sectors recorded positive growth in sales except for ‘other’. The largest growth category was leisure and sports, up 34.3% from Q1 FY24 compared to Q1 FY19. Fashion is up 15.8% in the same period, alongside footwear (10.4%) and jewellery (11.8%).
Discount department stores saw the second-largest growth, up 29% in Q1 FY24 compared to Q1 FY19, while department stores grew by 5.3%.
Overall, Scentre Group recorded a 3.2% growth for the quarter compared to the same period in 2022, driven by food retail, supermarkets, and leisure and sports.
Scentre Group CEO Elliott Rusanow said this was met with 28 million more visitors for the quarter than last year to 410 million.
“On a rolling 12-month basis customer visitations now exceed 500 million,” Rusanow said.
“Creating more reasons for customers to visit and spend their time in our Westfield destinations has generated continued business partner sales growth. Total business partner sales for the 9 months to 30 September 2023 were $19.7 billion, $1.3 billion or 7.3% higher than the previous corresponding period in 2022.
“Total business partner sales on a rolling 12-month basis are $28.1 billion which is $2.5 billion or 9.8% higher than the previous corresponding period in 2022.”
The company is currently undertaking redevelopments across its portfolio, including a $355 million transformation at Westfield Knox. It has also commenced a $50 million repurposing of department store space at Westfield Mt Gravatt to introduce Uniqlo, Harris Scarfe and a range of specialty stores. This will open throughout 2024.