Australia: Retail sales contract 0.6% in August – Westpac

Australia’s retail sales came in well below expectations in August recording a 0.6% contraction vs the market consensus forecast of a 0.3% gain, notes Matthew Hassan, Senior Economist at Westpac.

Key Quotes

“July’s flat result was also revised down to a 0.2% dip. Annual growth slowed to 2.1%, the weakest pace since June 2013.”

“This was the weakest monthly result since March 2013. Notably, whereas most monthly falls in retail sales tend to come off a strong gain in the month prior, the August fall followed a 0.2% dip in July. Indeed, the 0.8% contraction over July-August is the largest 2mth decline since October 2010, near the tailend of the RBA's 2009-10 tightening cycle.”

“Retail sales have tracked an uneven path in 2017, with weather factors restraining sales in Q1 followed by a recovery through Q2. That recovery has proven to be very short-lived with the weak July-August sales results suggesting nominal sales may have stalled completely in Q3 on a quarter to quarter basis.”

“The survey detail showed the weakness was broadly based across both store categories and states.”

“Food retail, which accounts for 40% of all sales, recorded a 0.6% fall. Cafes and restaurants recorded a large 1.3% decline. Non food retail fared a little better with a 0.3% dip overall. However within this, household goods retail was down 1% following a hefty 2.1% drop in July. Moreover the only category to record a gain was department stores where sales rose 0.7% but were coming off a sharp 3% drop over the previous two months.”

“Note that retail sales are in nominal terms so moves reflect both volume and price changes. We will get a better sense of how pricing has impacted with the release of the Q3 CPI later this month. However, even if price discounting has been a bigger than expected factor the underlying picture for Q3 retail volumes is still unlikely to look good, in turn pointing to significant downside risks to the Q3 consumption figures in the national accounts and wider GDP growth.”