Retail sales ticked over in May as shoppers in Western Australia and Queensland made up for the slide in Victoria caused by the start of the latest Victorian lockdown.
The Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) said on Monday that preliminary data showed a 0.1% rise in national retail sales in May. That’s down from the 1.1% month on month rise in April, but understandable given the lockdown in the last week of the month.
Analysts had pencilled in a rise of 0.4% which was optimistic given the impact of the Victorian lockdown.
The small rise compared to the 5.8% jump in May of last year which was the first month of the rebound from the slide in April of that year.
The lockdowns in Victoria and now in NSW will be why retail sales for June will be weak and possibly negative.
Sales in Victoria fell 1.5% in the month with falls across all industries except for food retailing, where spending increased in the lead up to the lockdown in the last week of May, according to the ABS.
The falls in Victoria were offset by rises of 1.5% in sales in both Queensland and WA.
Nationally, at an industry level, food retailing led the rises, offset by falls in household goods retailing, and clothing, footwear and personal accessory retailing.
Ben James, the ABS’s Director of Quarterly Economy Wide Surveys, said in a statement, “there were mixed results across the industries and states and territories, with COVID-19 restrictions in Victoria impacting the May result.”
Compared to May 2020, the ABS said retail sales last month were 7.4% higher – that’s down from the 25% rise in April which compared to the big drop in the same month a year ago.
