Black Friday Sales Lift Retail Turnover by 0.9%

According to the report, retail saw a lift in sales by 0.9 percent, which has been seasonally adjusted. This comes from a lift of 0.1 percent in October.

The categories that saw the biggest uplift included department stores (3.4 percent) and clothing, footwear and accessory retailing (3.1 percent).

“We have seen strong growth in Black Friday sales, both in areas such as electrical goods and online sales, but also in areas such as clothing and furniture,” explained Ben James, Director of Quarterly Economy Wide Surveys. “While seasonal adjustment removes regular seasonal patterns associated with Black Friday based on prior results, the strong seasonally adjusted rises in a number of sub-groups this month shows that the impact of this Black Friday exceeded that of previous years.”

Across Australia, the ABS reported a rise in Victoria (1.1 percent), Queensland (1.2 percent), New South Wales (0.7 percent), South Australia (1.4 percent), Western Australia (0.5 percent), the Australian Capital Territory (0.7 percent) and Tasmania (0.4 percent).

In contrast, the Northern Territory fell -0.2 percent in seasonally adjusted terms in November 2019. The trend estiate for Australian retail turnover, the ABS found, rose 0.3 percent in November 2019, following a 0.3 percent rise in October 2019. Compared to November 2018, the trend estimate rose 2.9 percent.

Online Retail Contribution

The ABS reported that online retail contributed 7.1 percent to total retail turnover in November 2019. In November 2018, the online retail contribution was 6.6 percent of retail turnover.

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