March was a massive month for retail as the world was shook up with the Coronavirus. The ABS has reported that in March, Australia recorded retail sales up 8.5% driven mostly by the panic buying and online shopping spurred by the current epidemic. This is compared to a 0.5% increase in retail in February.
The result was not a surprise as there was plenty of news around indicating that Australians were buying groceries in massive numbers and continued to do so in April. The ABS is expecting huge numbers for April as well with a rise of 8.2 percent.
The demand for food retailing and household goods in March was phenomenal and unprecedented with Australians preparing for a long battle with the Coronavirus. Unfortunately the businesses that have suffered during this time is clothing, cafes and other food services with a massive drop in business mostly due to government controls over their trading.
It’s not much of a surprise but during this time online shopping has increased dramatically with a huge jump of 5.6% compared to the previous month. Online retail now represents a huge 9.7% of all retail sales. Although this figure has risen it does also show that retail sales are slowing in general. There were big jumps in Alcohol and Grocery and therefore Woolworths and Dan Murphy’s were big winners.
Online stores such as Catch and Amazon were big winners in the online space with huge sales from people stuck in isolation. Use a Catch discount code for big discounts from Catch.