NAB is out with its monthly retail index for July and it shows a strong bounce back from Q2 weakness:
Australian online retail sales rose to $14.1 billion in the year to July 2013, a level that is equivalent to 6.3% of
traditional retail spending.
In this release, we’ve introduced seasonal adjustment to our index for the first time. Retail data is highly seasonal – with sales peaking around the Christmas period. Seasonal adjustment allows us to make better month to month comparisons – for example, it highlights a slowdown in online sales growth between January and April this year, and acceleration in growth in recent months (Chart 1). The three-month moving average growth rate was +3% in July (up from +1% in June).
We’ve also observed a trend of convergence over the last few months, with the growth rates for international and domestic sales, metropolitan and regional areas and major states all moving closely together (Chart 2). In particular, growth in Western Australia has slowed – moving from one of the strongest growing states to one of the weakest in July.
Hmmm, might be a bit early to be applying seasonal adjustment. Two years in is not much of a sample so I’d be taking this jump iwith a grain of salt.
Moreover, it appears to have been concentrated in offshore purchases:
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The dollar will have to come down a long, long way to turn around retail.
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.
