Deloitte’s weekly economic briefing notes that a key reason why retail sales rebounded so strongly after shutdowns is because “there wasn’t much else that households could spend on, especially with both international and interstate travel off the cards”.
However, Deloitte also sees the sales “windfall” as temporary and believes that 2021 will see a “transition back to more normal spending behaviour”. In particular, the “fiscal stimulus tap has been turned down to a drip, meaning less money for households to spend”, and as other industries open up, some spending will inevitably shift from retail to these areas.
The upshot is that Deloitte sees steady but not spectacular growth in retail sales in 2021:
