NAB’s monthly retail index for December is out and the bank is suggesting that seasonal monthly may not account entirely for falls.
In 2012, Australia’s online retail spending was $12.8 billion. This level is around 5.8% of the size of Australia’s traditional bricks & mortar retail sector (excluding cafés, restaurants and takeaway food for a like-to-like comparison) for the twelve months to November 2012.
The NAB Online Retail Sales Index pulled back a little in December – down to 227 points(compared with 241 points previously). This was a seasonal move, with November being thepeak month for online retail sales, which allows time for goods to be delivered ahead of Christmas.
The growth rate for online sales eased in December, with the index increasing by +23% year-on-year. This rate of growth is reasonably robust when compared with the past year, but is below the strong growth rates of October and November 2012 (at +26% and +27%respectively). To the extent that seasonal patterns are unchanged, this implies relatively weaker growth in online December spending this year vis-à-vis 2011.
The rest of the report is worth a glance too with some interesting detail on categories and the following chart which rather suggest the overseas threat to retail is overblown:
David Llewellyn-Smith is Chief Strategist at the MB Fund and MB Super. David is the founding publisher and editor of MacroBusiness and was the founding publisher and global economy editor of The Diplomat, the Asia Pacific’s leading geo-politics and economics portal.
He is also a former gold trader and economic commentator at The Sydney Morning Herald, The Age, the ABC and Business Spectator. He is the co-author of The Great Crash of 2008 with Ross Garnaut and was the editor of the second Garnaut Climate Change Review.
