Roy Morgan’s annual Christmas retail sales forecasts, conducted in conjunction with the Australian Retailers Association, suggest Australians will spend over $52.7 billion across retail stores during the Christmas trading period, an increase of 2.6% from the $51.4 billion of retail expenditure during the 2018 Christmas trading period:
Growth in retail expenditure is predicted across all six categories measured with spending on Food expected to grow by 3.2% from a year ago to nearly $21.7 billion. Also set to grow strongly will be Apparel including clothing, footwear and accessories up 3% to almost $4.2 billion.
Hospitality businesses are forecast to grow by 2.3% to an expenditure of well over $7.4 billion and an impressive $8.8 billion is expected to be spent on Household Goods this Christmas, an increase of 0.6% from a year ago. Department stores are set to experience slower growth than other categories, up by 0.5%, to overall spending of almost $3 billion.